In the Land of Shadows
by VitaSeptima
Summary: With the rest of Section D broken, Ruth must heal herself. A few little scenes that might have happened in the shadows of Season 8. Now complete.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

She sat alone at a table meant for two, staring at the cup in her hand. How easy it would be, she mused, to let it slip from her fingers and watch it fall to the floor with an ear-splitting crash. It was made of sturdy white porcelain, the type that would break into chunks large enough to repair with glue and a little patience. Once, in her previous life, there had been a teacup belonging to her Grandmother, fluted in design, covered with Lily of the Valley, a memento safely preserved on a shelf. She had knocked it off while cleaning and watched in horror as it smashed to the ground, splintering into a thousand pieces. As the tiny shards pricked her fingers, she had wept at her own stupidity and the realization that she could never repair something so fragile.

She returned to contemplating the coffee. It looked promising; dark, with a sharp aroma that tickled the back of her nose. If she closed her eyes, she could be there again, but no matter how she tried, she could not shut out the hissing of the coffee machines, the low voices of the patrons and the rain pattering against the window. She took a sip of the coffee and gave a quiet sigh. It was bitter and lacked body, the flavour falling flat on her tongue, the taste serving only to remind her she was no longer in Cyprus.

Ruth looked around the cafe, observing the small tables sprinkled about haphazardly accompanied by mismatched chairs, a nice change from one of those pervasive chain shops, for which she was thankful. She covertly studied the clientele, not out of a sense of idle curiosity but more from a ropey sinew of apprehension that now sat permanently between her ribs, always ready to become a twisted knot in her stomach. The sensation was not new; she had lived with it for years. Paranoia was an old friend. Had it not served her well in Cyprus? It could very well save her again. Her eyes set upon a middle age man, tapping away at a laptop. He could be working for Mace. She quickly replaced that thought; it was outdated. No, he could be working for Mani. She shook her head dismissively. Mani was dead. But then again, dead was a relative term in this business.

It was this low-level apprehension, the constant wariness that informed her decision to choose a table obscured in the shadows, yet close enough to the window to see anyone who approached the door. Through the glass, she watched as pedestrians scurried in the rain, wrestling with the flimsy fabric of their umbrellas in a vain attempt to stop the thin ribs of steel from bending backwards. She smiled at their struggle. If only it were that easy to stop one's life from turning inside out.

She pulled her grey trench closer around her for it had not occurred to her to remove it; that would mean she felt safe; but all she had felt since her return to London was a bone-aching chill. How quickly she had become accustomed to the sun, warm temperatures making exile slightly more bearable. The promise of the sun had been one reason she had chosen the Mediterranean, that, and the fact there were no memories associated with Greece, only heroes and myths. She had thought of herself as a hero, in her own tale of sacrifice, destined to sail the seas on an odyssey. Like wanderers before her, she had found herself washed ashore on an island; an island as divided as she, and like the ancients, she had also discovered that she could not outrun monsters.

Her thoughts returned to the present as she glimpsed a cropped blonde head, weaving its way towards her through a crowd of students.

"I'm so glad you came," Jo said, as she drew beside the table, placing a hand on Ruth's shoulder.

Ruth wanted to pull her friend into a warm embrace, to feel something pulsing and alive under her fingertips. There had been a time when she had jokingly rebuffed the effusive natures of George and Nico, laughingly dodged their kisses, ducked out of hugs, but now she would have given anything to touch them, to hold them one more time. Ruth covered Jo's hand with her own. She was grateful for the gesture, no matter how small.

"It never crossed my mind not to come."

A faint hint of cigarette smoke drifted in the air as Jo sat down. It reminded Ruth of George; how he would sneak in a cigarette during an after-work drink with his fellow doctors, thinking he could hide the telltale scent of the illicit smoke by chewing gum. You can't get the smell out, she would tell him, it clings to you. She would chastise him; that he of all people should know the dangers of smoking. He would laugh as she struggled to evade his kiss, the taste of tobacco on his lips, brushing them across her cheek to whisper in her ear that it would take more than a cigarette for her to get rid of him. With a great effort, she pulled her thoughts away from George and back to the woman sitting in front of her. She wanted to tell Jo she was too young and beautiful to ruin her life by smoking, but what right did she have to give anyone advice? It could very well be the smoke from the charred ruins of her life that hung in the air. Instead, she smiled at her friend. "You look good. Your hair, it's..."

"Short?" Jo grinned as she flicked a packet of sugar with her fingers and then poured it into her coffee. "Makes it easier to handle those middle of the night red flashes."

It was the way that Jo's smile didn't quite reach her eyes, that made Ruth realize there was something else that hung in the air about her friend. Haunted, that was it, yet still so beautiful. Ruth's hand reached up to touch her own hair, which she knew to be a sorry sight.

"You look good too," Jo said earnestly.

"You don't have to say that. I haven't slept in days, I don't have any decent clothes and I haven't stopped-" The sentence remained unfinished. She had promised herself she would not burden Jo with her sorrows, in fact, she had come today with the intent of forgetting them. She looked down at her coffee cup and traced her finger along the smooth curve of its handle. "I haven't been able to find a decent cup of coffee since I've been back. All the time I was away, I complained I could never get a decent cup of tea. Funny lot, aren't we? Always wanting what we can't have." She gave Jo a tremulous smile.

Jo reached across the table and took Ruth's hand. "It's alright; you don't have to hide it from me."

Ruth shifted her gaze to the window. "I had to tell Nico about his father." Her tone was flat. "He blames me, as he should."

"It wasn't your fault. You had no idea what was going on. You came back because you were trying to protect them. It was the right thing to do," Jo assured her.

"He wouldn't let me hug him or kiss him goodbye." Ruth took a long, shuddering breath.

Jo gave Ruth's hand a gentle squeeze. "He's just a child. He doesn't understand, maybe in time."

"I always thought of him as a gift," she turned back to look at her friend. "There was never any time to think about that sort of thing when you're buffeted from one threat to the next. He was like this unfolding riddle. One moment he would know everything about the world and the next, I would have to check under his bed for monsters. I tried to cherish him, even when ...when...I remember we gave him this Ethniki jersey and he wore it for a week, wouldn't take it off, it had this big chocolate stain on the front..." She smiled, quelling the tears that were starting to brim in her eyes. "It was naive of me wasn't it, to think I could leave the service behind and have a normal life. You say I brought them here to safety when the truth is I brought them back into danger."

Jo tilted her head in a compassionate gesture. "Do you really believe that? Do you really believe we can never leave?"

"I don't know. I've been trying to figure out how I slipped up, how were they able to find me? Why would Mani, after all those years, use me against Harry, when nothing ..." Once again, she left the sentence unfinished. That was a wound of a different nature.

Tactfully, Jo manoeuvred the conversation away from that sore point. "What will you do?"

"I could always go back to GCHQ."

"Seriously?"

"Yes. No. I don't know."

"Come back to us. We can look after you."

Ruth tensed, pulling her hand away. When she had agreed to meet, she had anticipated the conversation would turn to the Service but she found herself affronted, disappointed that this time was not just for the two of them. She was still resentful that their last encounter had not been a reunion but a discussion of how Ruth could placate Harry so he could be in the right frame of mind to make decisions regarding national security. Part of her had bristled at the notion, the scenario opening up an old wound from her younger self; a remembrance of having been called before the headmistress to make amends with a girl in her form who had tormented her mercilessly. Of course, Harry was not a bully, but he could not possibly be suffering in the same way as she. The rational, adult side of her brain knew it was far better to douse her anger by offering an olive branch, but a bitter taste remained. She suspected that once again Jo had come at his bidding. "Did Harry send you?"

"He asked me to speak to you, but I wanted to see you anyway. I would have asked you to come back of my own accord."

Ruth looked down at her hands, her fingers now occupied in folding and unfolding a stiff paper napkin. "Why didn't he come?" she asked, not raising her eyes, wondering if Jo could hear the meaning beneath the words. If Harry wanted her back, he should be the one to ask.

"Far be it for me to know what goes on inside Harry's head, but I think he might be afraid of you."

"Afraid? Of me?" the words escaped Ruth with a huff of disbelief.

"Maybe he's afraid he would muck it up; that whatever he does, it will be wrong." Ruth lifted her head and looked at Jo, silently acknowledging the certainty of that statement. Jo shrugged her shoulders and lowered her hands to her coffee cup, mirroring Ruth's fiddling fingers. "Maybe he asked me to talk to you because I understand. Because of what I've been through..." It was Jo's turn to leave the sentence unfinished.

Ruth gently placed her fingers on top of Jo's hand. "What is it? What happened?"

"Ros once told me that this job is harder on us than it is on the men and that's why we have to be tougher than they are to do it." Jo met Ruth's eyes with a startling directness.

Ruth stilled her fingers, her breathing suspended while her imagination tripped over itself envisioning scenarios that would lead to such advice. She took a deep breath. "Can you tell me?"

Jo shook her head. "Not now. Not today."

Ruth bowed her head, secretly relieved, certain that she was in no state of mind to learn that Jo was not as she remembered, perfect and whole. There would be time for them to unburden their souls. Ruth traced her thumb over the back of Jo's hand and massaged gentle circles; she could not help but be curious about those who were missing. "Can you tell me what happened to Adam and Zaf?"

"You know I can't tell you that," Jo whispered. Ruth nodded in understanding; she was still a civilian. "Come back. Come back for me, Ruth, and we can help each other." Jo's voice swung between a plea and a promise.

"I'm not like you. I'm not one of the strong ones. I have nothing left," Ruth whispered back, her voice matching Jo's hushed intensity.

Jo placed her elbow on the table and leaned in closer. "That's not true. You have a different kind of strength. You are full of kindness and compassion. I'm afraid of losing that; I don't like what I'm becoming. I've shut part off myself off and I'm afraid I'll never get it back.

Ruth bit her lip and turned away, her head wobbled, along with her resolve, she was finding it harder to say no than she had anticipated. "I'll think about it."

Jo sensed an opening and pressed her advantage. "Why did you join Five?"

"I was dying a death of a thousand paper cuts at GCHQ. I wanted to be a real spy." Ruth smiled as she remembered the eagerness of her younger self.

"And when you found out spying wasn't as glamorous as you thought it would be why did you stay?" Jo coaxed.

Ruth had to stop herself from saying "Harry", the ease that it would have fallen from her lips a testament to the comfort she felt with Jo, but there were reasons far less trite and self-serving. "I like to think I made a difference. That perhaps some piece of information I discovered saved lives."

"You know it did. We save lives. What we do is important. It's a chance to be part of something that's bigger than both of us. I know it's incredibly selfish of me to ask-"

"It's not selfish at all, Jo."

They sat in silence for a moment and Ruth found her thoughts wandering back over operations successful and otherwise. She finally broke the silence. "What happened to the girl? The one you came to see me about? The one that was going to be sacrificed to that Russian oligarch?"

A mask descended on Jo's face, hardening her features, faint lines tightening around her mouth. "Some people don't want to be saved." There it was on the table, did Ruth want to be saved?

Ruth looked down at her coffee, now grown cold. Next time she would order tea. Her eyes fell on Jo's cup. There was a delicate smear of pink lipstick lining the rim. Ruth examined her own cup, devoid of any trace of her existence. She was a ghost, she needed to live; she needed something worth living for. There was fearful symmetry in returning to the Grid, compelling and daunting at the same time. If she returned, surrounded by people who knew her, knew the old her, there was the possibility that she could find herself again. She lifted her eyes and looked at Jo with a soft smile.

"That's a yes then?" Jo let out a sigh as if she had been holding her breath, her smile breaking out like the sun. A warm flush spread through Ruth at the thought that she had been the one to bring that smile to Jo's face.

They stayed at the table and held hands as the world moved on around them. The rain outside continued, oblivious to the cracks of the human heart. Ruth savoured the moment of peace she had found, feeling that there might be a small ember of hope left inside her; content to know that Jo would be there to help her.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N - Thank you for all the kind reviews! Hope the next chapter is to your liking._

Chapter 2

The phone slipped from where it sat perched on her shoulder, clattering noisily onto the desk. "Thing," she muttered in frustration, quickly picking it up and shoving it back into place. Her old handset had nestled securely at the crook of her neck, but the streamline design of this new model meant that she was constantly shifting to reposition it. She nudged it with her chin as she continued to scroll through the database, humming along with the vapid hold music. A voice came through the line, rousing her from her search with a cheery hello.

"Gerald, it's Ruth," she responded with a smile. Her brow furrowed as she realized the other party had failed to recognize her voice. "Ruth Evershed." She stopped typing and straightened up in her seat, holding the receiver properly with her hand. "Um, well, no, I'm not." She gave out a shaky laugh. "The rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Her eyes darted around the Grid as a flutter of panic rippled through her. She mentally kicked herself. She had been so absorbed in her quest for data she had forgotten that she couldn't just pick up the phone and start a conversation with anyone. Everyone in Section D knew of her return and the circumstances surrounding it, but what of all her contacts that she had cultivated during her previous tenure. Apparently, they still thought she was dead.

"I was ..." she sucked in a breath and screwed her eyes shut, "out of the country." Shit. Was she allowed to say that? She turned her head towards Harry's office as the voice on the other end of the phone continued the conversation. There should have been a proper debrief, a back-story put in place, except that she had not been an agent in the field; she had been an ordinary citizen living her life. Her first day back and she had walked straight into a kidnapping crisis. There had barely been time for Harry to hand her a new passport, let alone address the finer points of her resurrection. She kept her eyes on Harry's office, silently cursing him for putting expediency above protocol, his desire to get her cracking on the Bendorff crisis overriding everything else. He must have sensed her ire, for at that moment he lifted his head from the file he was reading and looked straight at her. Their eyes met and held one another for a second until the voice on the phone brought her back to the conversation at hand.

"A drink?" The old Ruth would not have hesitated, she would have latched right onto that weakness, seen it as a door, an opportunity, heck she would have proposed it herself. She was a bit rusty at the wheedling information game; it would take some time for her to get back in form. "Yes, yes, of course, a drink would be lovely. We could catch up. But listen right now I need some information on a lawyer."

She grabbed her pad and wrote down the details that Gerald, now assured of a drink, so willingly divulged and then hurriedly excused herself on the pretense that she was needed somewhere else, ending the call before he could rattle off suitable times for a date. She turned back to her terminal, flicking her fingers over the keys, buoyed by the excitement of unearthing a choice bit of information until a dialogue box popped up and halted her progress. With a shake of her head, she rolled her chair back and headed over to the tech suite.

"Tariq? Do I need an access code in order to print?"

Deeply immersed in unraveling the bouncing IP addresses of a video link, the young man responded without looking up, "Yeah, each print job is assigned an op number."

The sheer bureaucratic idiocy of the rule elicited an eye roll from Ruth. "You've got to be kidding me?"

"It's to keep track of any paper waste."

"We'll have to find a way around that." She twirled her pen between her fingers as she pondered ways in which to override the system.

He looked up at her. "I could get you a tablet if that helps. You wouldn't need to worry about paper."

"Sometimes a crisis calls for a pen and a post-it." She clicked the top of her pen with the palm of her hand as if to illustrate her point.

"Harry said I was to get you anything you wanted. I can scrounge some up if you like ..." He moved as if to get the paper.

She smiled at his eagerness to help her. "No, a tablet will be fine."

He looked relieved that she had decided to join the twenty-first century. "It's more efficient."

"It's is only as efficient as the person using it."

"True." Tariq rolled his chair back and with a sinuous stretch and grabbed a mobile phone from an adjoining desk. "While you're here, you should take this," he handed the phone to Ruth. "I've programmed all the numbers in for you."

Ruth took the slim piece of metal from his hand and glanced at the contact list. Harry, Ros, Lucas, Jo. Where were the names she remembered? She had barely even had a conversation with Lucas, and Ros was now the section chief; that last fact alone would take some time for her to accept. The team were all off the Grid, for which Ruth was secretly thankful, leaving just her, Harry and Tariq. And Tariq had no idea of her past.

"You also need to sign for this packet. It's the rest of your ID and stuff." He handed her a large innocuous brown envelope.

"Good, then maybe I'll know who I am."

He looked up at her quizzically. He must have thought she was daft.

"I feel very old and very new at the same time," she said, by way of explanation.

"I know what it's like to feel new." He looked up at her with a wide grin and ran his fingers through the shaggy fringe of hair that hung in front of his eyes.

He was young, she observed, so very young, with no idea how the service would tie his moral fibre into convoluted ethical knots.

Laden with access codes and her identity, she thanked him and returned to her desk. Out of habit, she opened the bottom drawer to retrieve her purse. It trundled out, stopping with a hollow click. She looked down and saw the compartment staring back at her, empty, devoid of the little details that made up her work life. No patchwork bag, no comfortable black pumps, no make-up kit or extra pair of stockings; the envelope in her hand represented the bare bones of her existence. She laid her meagre belongings on the desk. Not even a tube of bloody lipstick. An overwhelming sense of loss washed over her, so acute that her legs buckled and she dropped down into her chair.

For the first time that day, she stopped and looked around the Grid, her eyes wide and searching, taking a moment to absorb all the changes. The workstations, unhampered by dividers, sat closer together, the overhead lights gave off blue glow and the pods opened like giant mouths instead of sleepy eyes. She felt like the wrong note in a chord of music. Not quite in tune. What am I doing here, she asked herself. I analyze information, information that saves lives. Yes, she would cling to that thought. A simplicity of purpose to go along with her unadorned life. She had felt a flush of pride when she had walked in and straightway known it was the Bendorff Group that were held captive, a sense of satisfaction that she was able to list off each member by sight. There had also been the quiet thrill she had felt while sitting in Harry's office, he leaning over to confide in her, and only her, his concerns about a new world order. She gave out a long, slow breath, releasing the anxiety from her chest. It will all come back, she told herself, in time it will feel right. She returned to printing off the document.

The mundane task of assembling the file focused her mind and helped to sweep away her disparate thoughts. Once she was ready to take the information to Harry, she felt a renewed sense of intention and her step was confident as she headed towards his office. As she approached the door, she reached towards the handle to pull it open but stopped, leaving her hand to hang in mid air. Could she walk right in? Was it too bold of her to think she could go back to her old habits? She let out an exasperated sigh. If she over thought every action today she would be lost. As a concession, she knocked and then opened the door.

"I've tracked Lambert's dealings to this lawyer, Benson, he arranged the trust fund. He has several high-profile Russian clients but which one is the benefactor... there's a trail to a number of American accounts."

"Ah, it might be time for a chat with our new friend Miss Caufield. Good work, thank you, Ruth."

As he moved to take the file, a shaft of light caught the silver his watchband, sending out a quick flash that drew Ruth's attention to his hand. She froze, mesmerised by the golden hairs on his knuckles. A deafening crash thundered in her ears like a giant wave echoing inside her head, creating the sensation of time slowly turning in on itself. This is a dream, she told herself, like all the other dreams, where it was just she and Harry, alone on the Grid. At any moment, she would wake and find herself back in Cypress.

"Ruth? Ruth? Are you alright?" Harry's voice broke through her thoughts.

The sound of the wave inside her head receded, replaced by an unnatural silence. She blinked slowly, her lips slightly parted in wonder as if she were seeing him for the first time. "I had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu," she answered, not wanting to confess her dreams to this man.

"That's to be expected," replied Harry as he subtly tightened his grasp on the folder.

She hesitated to give the file up to his grip, feeling that were she to let go she would lose her tenuous hold on reality. Her eyes darted about the office, looking for something to latch onto, something solid and real that would anchor her to that moment in time. Placing her free hand on the desk, she spread her fingers out over the smooth wooden surface and, assured of its corporeality, used it to steady herself, giving her the courage to release the folder to his grasp.

She raised her eyes, only to find Harry looking down at her fingers as they rested on his desk. Was he as hypnotised by her hand as she had been with his? Hastily, she withdrew her hand from the desk and moved it up to her throat, her fingers tracing over her skin as they searched for her necklace. Where was it now? Gone, like everything else. As her thumb caressed the delicate notch of her collarbone, she realised that Harry's gaze had followed the motion of her hand and now hovered at her neckline, intently watching her fingers. He was sat very still, like a cat focused on its prey, his lips slightly parted, his breathing imperceptible. Ruth became acutely aware of her own breathing, how her hand rested across her breasts, rising a falling, a tingling sensation spreading across her skin. She cleared her throat and before his eyes could find hers, she looked over his shoulder at the wall. The red wall; standing in a glorious rebellion colour. She wanted to touch it, lean her forehead against it, close her eyes and have it take her back in time. "You haven't changed," she whispered. She could see from the corner of her eye the lift in Harry's brow. "Your office I mean." The statement quantified so he knew what she meant.

"Some things never change." This time, his eyes found hers. She remembered that look, the one that held a hint of challenge; daring her to look away, which of course, she did. He had always been better at that game. "I wouldn't let them touch my office," he continued, "They can have at it when I leave."

She nodded, breathing in a little bubble of air. "I was wondering..." Harry cocked his head to one side, a gleam of anticipation in his eyes. Not quite knowing how to phrase the question, she plaintively said the name: "Malcolm?"

Harry sat back in his chair, and looked at her, puzzled. "He retired. Didn't Jo tell you?"

"Retired?" She mulled over the implication of this in her head. "No. I suppose she thought she couldn't tell me that information until I was reinstated."

"Is Tariq not working out?"

"No, no, he's great. What dealings I've had with him so far. It's just that, I was hoping for a familiar face." She noticed the lines tighten around Harry's eyes. "Not that you're not a familiar face. You are, it's just that ..." she trailed off. Was she going to spend her entire return grasping at explanations? A smaller wave of déjà vu washed over her as she remembered her inability to articulate anything to Harry that did not involve statistical data or covert intelligence. She gestured over her shoulder. "I should get back to work."

"Wait a minute." Harry reached into a drawer and took out a small white card, handing it over to Ruth.

"What's this?" she asked.

"Malcolm's number."

"I thought we weren't allowed to keep contact with those who left the service."

"If I don't know about it, it didn't happen," he countered, an enigmatic smile crossing his face.

She took the card and ran her fingers over the edge thoughtfully.

"Anything else?" There was a note of coaxing in his voice, like a barrister leading the witness.

"Yes," she hemmed, absently tapping the card on her hand, "there is something we need to address."

"Go on." He leaned towards her, placing his elbows on the desk.

"I don't know if this is the right time..."

"There may never be a right time."

He looked at her with a gaze she couldn't quite place. Open? Trusting? How easy it would be to stand there and relearn the subtleties of his countenance, but they were in the middle of an operation, time was of the essence so she pressed on. "I thought we should talk about if before things became," she cast about in her mind for the right word, "messy."

"Why would things become messy?"

"It has been three years, Harry."

His chin came to rest in his hand as he tilted his head to one side; his eyes became distant as if looking back in time to calculate the exact number of days. "Has it really been three years?" the disbelief apparent in his voice.

She nodded. "Give or take." When had she lost the exact number of days? At what point had she stopped counting? At what point had she completely accepted her life in Cyprus? She couldn't reflect on that now, she had to move forward. "That's why we need a backstory."

He lifted his chin from his hands. "Backstory," he echoed, confusion written on his face.

"I was on the phone with an old contact and he was obviously surprised I was alive. It's bound to come up again, so I need a cover." She could see the wheels turning in his mind.

"Ah, yes." He straightened up in his chair and ran his fingers over his tie, smoothing it out. "Quite right." He looked away from her, but Ruth saw the tightness return to his eyes. "I'll have Jo give you a hand with that once this mess is sorted out. You can get any necessary documents from Tariq." He opened the file Ruth had given him. "Anything else?" This time, his voice held no opening, no encouragement of further conversation. He looked at her with the same look Jo had given Ruth in the cafe; shuttered, a defense used to mask disappointment.

"No, nothing I can think of." She had wanted to ask about Adam and Zaf but sensed now was not the time, lives were in the balance. She stood for a moment and seeing that he did not look up, took it as a sign of dismissal.

She walked slowly back to her desk replaying their conversation in her head, parsing each word. Something had transpired between them, but she couldn't articulate exactly what. At some point, there had been a shift, a misplaced word, a meaning lost. How was it that poets could make words dance while mortals continually stumbled over their own ineloquence. She sighed. This was how she remembered him, open one moment and closed the next. They had always been like that, two tectonic plates, moving slowly towards each other but never quite connecting. Some things never change. With those words, a thought crystallised in the forefront of her mind and her lips formed a perfect circle of understanding. She looked back over her shoulder at the man sitting in the glass office. He had not changed.


	3. Chapter 3

_Thank you again to all of you who have read and reviewed!_

Chapter 3

"Ruth!" The very force of Harry's voice stopped her in mid stride. She rocked back on her heel and calculated whether she could make it to the end of the corridor before he overtook her. The decision was made for her when Harry drew parallel with her shoulder. The corridor exposed all; there was no place to hide. She turned around, but rather than face him fully, her gaze gravitated to a point over his shoulder, settling upon a rivet in the wall. Even the hallway had succumbed to a renovation in her absence; the walls stripped down to concrete, the harsh light revealing pockets and fissures. She had walked this corridor countless times in the past, but it felt different, darker, heavier.

Harry waved a piece of paper in front of her face. "What is this?" he asked, his voice low, barely concealing an edge of anger.

"A request for transfer," she answered, attempting to keep her voice level.

"To GCHQ?" he asked incredulously.

She nodded and kept her eyes averted from his face.

"Is this some kind of joke?" he asked. Ruth shifted her weight from one foot to the other, silently acknowledging the absurdity of the request. "You've spent your entire time here fighting not to go back there," Harry pointed out, his tone making it clear there he could think of no possible reason for her decision.

"That was before." She left it to him to fill in the rest.

"Before what?"

She shifted her gaze, still managing to avoid his eyes. Good God, did she have to spell it out for him. He had been in the room with her, witnessed the entire ordeal, and as if the events of that day had not been horrific enough, fate had decided to take Jo.

They had sat on a bench that morning, he having summoned her on the pretext of talking about Jo. She knew that he had other reasons, deeper reasons, that this was his circuitous way of prodding into her. The element of subterfuge, so crucial to his work life, spilling over into how he carried out his emotional life; never overtly stating anything. She had sat there, listening to him, feeling utterly lacking in wholeness, split between two worlds, not knowing to which she belonged. A part of her brain had disengaged from the present, her thoughts moving on without her control, which she knew was a sign of shock, the effects of another wave of grief pounding at her, having never fully recovered from the previous traumas. She was shutting down, a form of emotional hypothermia, all non-essential feelings cut off in an effort to keep the blood pumping to her heart.

He had turned towards her as she looked out over the river, the space between them heavy under the weight of words unspoken. In his silence, he searched the void of her despair to see if she still held on to the idea of "them". Indeed, she had cherished the idea of them for long months after they had parted, many a night her pillow was wet with her own tears. She had moved from city to city and stumbled upon the realisation that no one was coming to save her. As a matter of self-preservation, she had wrapped up her memories of him and filed them away, along with other remembrances also tainted with pain and loss: her father, her stepbrother. She had carried on, moved through and emerged on the other side to a place where she had found love with George.

"Ruth" Harry's insistent voice broke through her thoughts, pulling her back to the Grid, "Before what?"

"Everything." The word came out in a breath far more tremulous than she had intended. She couldn't lose it, not here in the corridor. Were her emotions in such a fragile teacup that they would spill over at the slightest nudge?

"But why?" The note of concern in his voice caused Ruth to blink. Anger she could deal with, but somehow compassion coming from Harry unnerved her.

"I can't..."

"Can't what?" he prodded.

What was she to say? That she couldn't be his confidant, his compass, the linchpin, the heart of the section; because frankly she wasn't sure she still had a heart.

Licking her lips, she prevaricated, "I don't think I belong here anymore."

Harry stepped in closer. He knew she was hedging. She shouldn't have licked her lips; it was a tell. She stepped back but came up against the unrelenting hardness of the corridor wall. Her breath became shallow. It's only anxiety, she thought, a reaction to everything that has happened over the past few weeks.

"Tell me the real reason," Harry pressed.

Her eyes were level with the knot in his tie. She studied the pattern; grey with dark squares, the silk changing hues in the light. It sat slightly askew of his collar and she fought the urge reach up and set it straight; as if by aligning his tie, she could fix her life. She swallowed and lowered her eyes, hoping she would find the right words laid out on the ground. Of course, none lay before her, only the polished tiles of the floor, staring back up at her. She should have told him of her decision when they were alone, sitting on the bench. She had not possessed the courage then and had no resolve to summon it now. She realised her only other recourse was to flee.

"We can't talk about it here," she replied in an agitated whisper. She stepped away from the wall, attempting to manoeuvre past Harry.

His arm shot up, the palm of his hand cemented against the wall, effectively blocking her escape. "You shouldn't have dumped it on my desk and skirted away."

Ruth's eyes widened as she faced his arm. She was trapped. A bubble of panic rose in her throat. She swallowed it down as she struggled to find some control over the situation. "You were on the phone, you told me to leave it," her voice contained a hint of belligerence as she attempted to redirect the conversation.

"I wouldn't have said that if I had known what it was," he countered, his tone equally combative.

She had left it on his desk with the folders of Intel from the hotel in Basel. She hadn't hidden it per se; she just didn't want him to find it immediately.

"We're in the middle of an operation" he continued, frustration creeping into his voice.

Her lips curled into a wry smile. "Aren't we always in the middle of an operation, Harry?"

He let his arm fall but instead of allowing Ruth to pass, he moved closer, hemming her in with the sheer bulk of his body. His chest brushed her shoulder and she had no choice but to turn and face him, pressing back against the wall to avoid any further physical contact. He leaned into her, whispering harshly. "I've got Ros refusing to talk to anyone about Jo; I've sent Lucas out to meet the man who tortured him for years, possible bombs planted by the Sudanese-

He stood close, unnecessarily so, causing a multitude of emotions to war within her; she wanted to touch him, rest her forehead on his chest, have him wrap his arms around her so she wouldn't have to think about any of this. What were they? Colleagues? Friends? The chance for anything more had been lost that day she had sailed away and he had let her go. A knot of anger formed in her stomach as she recalled everything she had sacrificed. She wanted to push him away, run down the corridor, straight out of the building and into another life. "What about me?" The words came out of their own accord; she hadn't meant to say them aloud. In years past she would have buried her pain, would have been willing to put everything and everyone else before her, but not now.

"Ruth, you're not thinking clearly."

"How do you know what I'm thinking?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"Have you seen the psychologist?" he asked, changing tack.

She huffed at the thought that a complete stranger could untangle the great mess that was her mind. Her eyes flashed up to his. "No," she countered, "have you?"

Harry narrowed his eyes, taken aback by the note of challenge in her reply. She had hit a nerve. She sensed he was re-evaluating her. As he should, she was not the same woman who had left three years ago. She waited, her lips pursed, attempting to keep her expression neutral, knowing he would not give up on this interrogation and wondered what tactic he would use next.

"Ruth, you belong here. This is what you were meant to do."

"Do you think that because you sorted out my situation you can dictate what I do?"

"Of course not. But at this moment, you're the only one I can trust about Basel. Help me figure out what's going on. I need you."

His voice had been low and cajoling. It would have worked in the past, but now she would not give in so easily. Had he not reeled in her in with that same line many times before; that they were the only ones left to soldier on as the rest of the team fell apart? How many times had it been the two of them, in their symbiotic relationship built on nuance and subtext, she the faithful lieutenant, tempering his severity with her compassion, a greater force combined. A veil of unspoken words hung between them and she was not ready to draw it back. She drew a deep breath, still circling around her reason, hoping he would hear her underlying meaning. "There might be expectations that I can't fulfill."

He pressed in closer, his face lowered towards her. "What expectations?" he asked softly.

It was beyond her to give a direct answer. All she could do was look up into his eyes, hoping he would see how hard this was for her. She inhaled sharply. The intensity of his gaze hit her as it had done so many times before. In all of her memories of him, this was the one she had buried the deepest; the look of a starved man with a feast set before him, a hunger that stirred a similar need in her. The air was pulled from her lungs and her heart pounded so heavily in her chest that she could barely breathe. How could she be reacting to it, to him, after all this time? No, this was not happening. She would not allow it. She could not have feelings for this man. Not after what had happened. Not after what he had done. She would not let that spark ignite. She willed herself not to feel anything, to suppress the slight melting that sighed through her.

The sound of clacking heels reverberated along the walls. They turned their heads as Ros appeared at the end of the corridor. "Harry, Desharvin's made contact with Lucas." She halted, her cool gaze taking in the two of them.

Harry took a step back from Ruth. "Good, I'll be right there."

Ros nodded, giving them one last fathomless look and then turned on her heels to retrace her steps.

Harry swung back around, leaning into Ruth. He held up her transfer request and spoke in a raspy whisper, "I'm holding onto this. This conversation is not over." He turned and followed Ros, folding the piece of paper and slipping it into his coat pocket.

Ruth watched his retreating back, feeling her own edges fold inward. She crumpled against the coolness of the wall and closed her eyes. Her hand balled into a fist as she struck it against the concrete. Damn!

She had forgotten how the axis of this particular world tuned on a heartbeat. Without warning, Jo was gone and Ruth was adrift. How foolish she had been to think that Jo would be the one to lead her back to herself. She was alone. She was not strong enough for this. Stupid woman, she chastised herself, never rely on the permanence of anything in this department.

Her decision to leave had made perfect sense at three in the morning, as she lay awake talking to the various shadows that kept her company. Five was not the place for her fragile psyche, that instead she would return to GCHQ, with its mathematicians, its boredom, its longer life expectancy. Better to die by a thousand paper cuts, then to have one's heart repeatedly ripped out. That morning, when she had filled out the transfer form, she had felt a sense of power, that for the first time since leaving Cyprus she was in control of her life, rather than tossed about by fate. It was all an illusion, this sense of free will. In the end, they were chess pieces, all of them. In the great scheme of the world's troubles, her life was nothing.

She stood in the empty corridor and listened to the muted sounds of the Grid, struggling to compose herself. She refused to entertain the idea that Harry may be right, that this was where she belonged. He did not know what was best for her. He had no idea who she was, what circumstance had forced her to become. She attempted to reign in her thoughts, steering them on a course of empirical reasoning. They could never go back to who they were. She would not think about him in any other regard, except professionally. She would make a life for herself and go back to the mundane world of GCHQ. She must have been mad to consider returning to Five.

She inhaled a deep breath. The air still held the faint trace of Harry and it lingered about her like a cloud. She closed her eyes and the voice of reason in her head gave way to one far more primal; the one that whispered to her: wasn't it nice to feel his closeness, breath him in, and for a brief moment, feel protected.


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N Thank you for the kind reviews and to those who continue to read. There are a few more chapters on the burner; things that I thought were never resolved with the team, and especially with Harry.  
_

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Chapter 4

The air in the garden held a rarified quality as if time were suspended, one last gentle gasp of summer before the chill of autumn. Ruth wandered down the path, listening to the trill of birds rise over the distant hum of traffic. She stopped when she found herself in front of a large olive tree. She knew the history of this garden, protected by buildings, snug in a pocket of the Thames, home to species not typically British, but the olive tree came as a shock. A strange feeling of homesickness washed over her, made even stranger still by the fact that she knew she was home. One day, she thought, when she had time, she would return to this little paradise and enjoy the fragrant plants in the little glass houses.

The silver thread of a spider web glimmered in the sunlight. It spanned from a branch of the tree down to the ground and she marvelled at the feat of arachnid engineering. For some perverse reason, she ran her hand through it, severing the connection. Would the spider be horrified at having its work so ruthlessly undone, she wondered. No, it would carry on, compelled by instinct to build another web equally as magnificent, just as she was compelled to analyse information and solve a mystery.

Guiltily she acknowledged to herself that she should have returned to Thames House once she realised her contact was not coming, but she was delaying her descent back into the Underground. Practically speaking, she knew she could not function in the city without using public transport and that afternoon she had walked into the station feeling a sense of pride that she had overcome her apprehension. She had stood back from the edge of the platform, pressed against the cool tiles of the wall, avoiding eye contact with anyone.

She had waited on the platform, labouring under the suspicion that she was being watched, which she knew she was, she knew the placement of the cameras, she was one of the watchers after all, but this feeling was different. The lights had flickered ominously, the train wheels had screeched along the rails as the train came to a stop, all of it reminding her of that fateful day when she had met Mik Maudsley. It had taken all her self-control to walk onto the carriage. As the journey progressed, she could feel a wave of panic build up inside her, so that by the time she reached her stop, she found herself pushing her way through the crowd, running up the escalator to the mouth of the station, where she stood gasping for air. She held her phone in her shaking hands, wanting, as she done on that day, to call Harry and ask him to come and get her but she knew she couldn't. She had given in her request for transfer and all but told him he could not expect anything from her. After a number of deep breaths, she had collected herself, carried on to her meet, and now stood in the garden, waiting.

A tour of schoolchildren walked past, laughing and talking, relishing the freedom from the classroom. Her eyes followed them and she thought of Nico. Was he doing his homework, brushing his teeth, did he ever think about her? She sighed and looked down at the ground, toeing a pebble with her foot. The sound of footsteps, crunching on gravel brought her back to the present. She lifted her head and smiled in greeting.

"Hello, Malcolm."

"I'm so glad to see you." A smile beamed across his face. "Now, what's this all about?"

Ruth wanted to hug him but restrained herself. Their friendship had never been about overt displays, it had been built on understatement and trust. She noticed that he looked more relaxed than she had ever seen him; perhaps it was the jumper, for she not recall him ever being out of a suit. She motioned towards a nearby bench and they sat down.

"It's Nick Canning." She hoped Malcolm would not see through her, that her call to him was not just about the mysterious disappearance of an asset, but born out of a desperate need to see a familiar face.

"I suspected as much. This was our drop spot. Secluded, quiet, oddly lacking in CCTV coverage."

"He's missed the drop."

"That's odd. He never missed one the entire eleven or so years I knew him."

"I went round to his house and he's not there. The landlord let me in and I found this card. Dr. E.N. Constable." Ruth produced the card for Malcolm to see. "Do you have any idea what it means?"

"No, I'm afraid not. This is not at all like him. He never leaves his house, bit of recluse. Took some convincing to get him to meet me here and this is only a block away from his flat. I think you should tell Harry."

"I'm not sure if a missing computer geek will be high on his list of priorities."

Malcolm gave Ruth a reproachful look. "He's not just any geek, Ruth. He's found holes in our servers on more than one occasion."

"Yes, I know," Ruth looked down at the card in her hand. "There's um...a situation. I'm not sure Harry would put much store in what I said."

"By situation I gather you don't mean the usual threats," Malcolm said, with great delicacy.

"There's always that, isn't there?" Her gaze wandered over the garden and she squinted into the weak sunlight, weighing whether to reveal her decision. She drew in a deep breath. "I've put in a request for transfer. Back to GCHQ."

The silence beside her was unnerving. She turned to look at Malcolm and found him staring at her with one raised eyebrow.

"What?" she asked, defensively.

"I didn't say anything."

"You have that look on your face. The one you give out when someone does something completely idiotic but you're too polite to tell them".

"For the record, I have never thought of you as doing anything idiotic." He gave her a crooked smile, which she could not help but return.

They sat for a moment in silence, Ruth feeling grateful that he was not going to give her a lecture on returning to GCHQ.

"I'm sorry, Ruth."

"For what?"

"It was my fault that Mani's men found you."

"What do you mean?" she asked, her brows furrowed, a note of trepidation in her voice.

"I moved them to a safe house that was in the system, that's how they knew where you were."

Ruth processed this information. "Ronny was in the Service. He had access to everything. You weren't to know." She took in a deep breath. "Besides, you saved Nico."

"It wasn't out of some great courage. I needed to make things right. He was an innocent."

"Yes, he was."

"I'm terribly sorry."

"Unfortunately, Malcolm, I don't have any blame left for you. I've used it all up between myself and Harry."

"Harry's not to blame."

Ruth gave Malcolm an incredulous look. "He sat there and watched while they ..." Her voice trembled and she couldn't complete the sentence. "He would have let Nico die. For uranium, Malcolm."

"It was an impossible choice."

"I don't want to hear about choices." The words came out far more curtly than she had intended.

"We can't change the past, Ruth. We must move on."

"Is that why you left?" she asked, her tone softer. "I would hate to think it was because of me."

"I'd done all I could." Malcolm shifted on the bench, his voice becoming very quiet. "I...I thought Harry was dead." He wondered if he should be saying any of this, but it was Ruth. If anyone could ferret out information, it was this woman.

Ruth looked at Malcolm as if he was spinning a fanciful tale. "What do you mean ...dead?"

"There was a video. It looked like he had been shot in the head. The Russians had passed him on."

"The Russians?" She had not heard of this. In fact, she had not given much thought on how Harry had ended up in that room with her, only that he was there and thus the cause of everything. She would have to get back into her old habit of reading past operational notes. There had been moments in Cyprus where she had been overwhelmed by a feeling of dread, certain that something had happened to Harry, but just as quickly, she would dismiss it. In her mind, Harry would somehow always be the last man standing.

"I've seen too much, Ruth. Lost too many good people."

"I thought you would be there when I returned." she said, plaintively, like a lost child, "and now Jo..."

Malcolm looked at Ruth, the meaning of her unfinished sentence slowly dawning on him. He sat back heavily against the bench, letting the full weight of Jo's death sink in. "She was so very young."

"There's just you and me."

"And Harry. Does he know that we're meeting?"

Ruth pursed her lips and looked away. "He said if he doesn't know about it, doesn't happen."

"Ah, yes, plausible deniability."

With her face turned away, Malcolm took a moment to mark the changes that had come over her. He remembered her as having a ready smile, a quick laugh, a spark that shone, as quicksilver as her intellect. He had always enjoyed her company. Perhaps if he had been a braver man he would have asked out, but he was not. He had seen the hunger in Harry's eyes as he followed her about the grid, how her eyes had brightened whenever she looked at him. His heart ached to see her spirit doused. He decided it was best to change the subject. "How is the new techie working out?"

"Fine. He's fine. He's very young, he practically breathes technology." She could sense Malcolm stiffening beside her. "Of course there is something to be said for intellectual capital. He has nowhere near the experience you have." She was glad to see this elicited a lopsided grin from her companion.

"I take it you've acquired all my old assets then?"

"Yes. I hope that's all right?"

"As long as you're not running me." He paused as a thought struck him. "Or are you?"

"Only in the nicest possible way," she looked sideways at him, the barest glimpse of her old self, peaking through. "I have to get back. I've been gone too long as it is." She rose and placed her hand on his arm. "Thank you, Malcolm.'

"Anytime, call me, anytime." He placed his hand on top of hers and looked into her eyes. "Ruth, don't do anything in haste." She smiled and nodded, then turned to walk away.

He watched her leave, thinking she appeared much smaller than he remembered and sighed at how the Service reduced everyone in the end.

The sun followed Ruth as she walked up the street, teasing her with moments of brightness only to run skittishly behind a bank of clouds. She stopped at a traffic light and a prickle of apprehension moved slowly up her spine. She turned abruptly and walked a few paces before pausing in front of a shop window. She used the reflection of the glass to see if there was anyone behind her. Seeing no one, she glanced down and she realised she had stopped before a jeweller. Amongst the ornate rings and fanciful jewellery on display, she saw a necklace, so similar to the charmed one she had lost, that she took in a sharp breath. Without a thought, she found her feet taking her through the door and into the shop.

The bell tinkled as she entered and as if by some Pavlovian response, a young shop assistant appeared. "Is there something I can help you find?" she asked.

Ruth crossed the floor and looked down into the display cabinet. "I notice this necklace in the window. I used to have one just like it, but I lost it."

"That's a shame," the girl said, "It's lucky that you passed by here."

With a polite finesse, the assistant stepped in front of Ruth and opened up the cabinet, took out the necklace and offered it up. Ruth felt a strange reverence as she took the piece, as if she was looking at an artefact from her own life. She traced one of the ornaments with her fingertips, remembering there had also been a favourite wine coloured blouse that she worn, believing that it showed off her neck. She had worn it with a russet skirt, sewn on the bias, which swayed when she walked. She remembered a small silver case of plum eyeshadow and a little glass jar of raspberry lip gloss. It all seemed rather frivolous now as she looked down at her black skirt and navy top, hidden under her grey trench.

"I don't wear much jewellery these days," she said, wondering if it was due to some puritanical notion that one could not adorn oneself during mourning.

"Oh," the shop assistant responded rather listlessly, giving Ruth a look as if to ask why she was in the shop.

Ruth handed the necklace back. "It's not really my style anymore."

The assistant carried on, polite as ever. "Well, tastes evolve, as I'm sure we do."

Evolve. Ruth had never thought of that. Was that what was happening? Some sort of survival of the fittest with each test making her stronger. She promised herself that she would take that idea out and ruminate over it at three in the morning, instead of her usual fears.

Her eyes wandered past the shop assistant and alighted on a silver necklace. "That one is nice."

The comment roused the assistant like a fish to bait. "Yes, it is. Very simple. Quite elegant." Not wanting to let the possibility of a sale slip by, she extracted the necklace and held it up to Ruth. 'Would you like to try it on?" She quickly unclasped the lock and deftly positioned the piece around Ruth's neck. "Oh, it looks lovely on you."

Ruth touched the small silver charm that hung on the chain. She tightened her fingers around it, feeling a strange sense of relief wash over her. Without her bidding, tears started to well in her eyes and she swallowed hard in an effort to contain them. She lowered her head, overwhelmed that such a simple piece could evoke this strange cocktail of emotion in her.

The assistant stood patiently waiting. Ruth had glimpsed at the price tag and noted that it was a little too dear for her pocketbook. She bit her bottom lip. What else was she to spend her money on?

"I'll take it," she said, surprising the assistant. She reached into her pocket to pull out her wallet, noting to herself that at some point she would have to invest in a decent purse.

"Will you be wearing it then," the girl asked in a far more cheery tone.

"Could you put it in a box? I think I would like to save it, for when the occasion is right." She would wear it one day when she felt stronger, surer of herself, and if that day took too long in coming, she would put it on as a reminder of her own endurance.

With the small silver box tucked snuggly in her pocket, she stepped back out onto the street, the doorbell faintly jingling behind her. Sod the tube, she thought and crossed to the kerb to hail a taxi. As she turned to look down the far side of the street, she saw a figure in a dark overcoat.

"Harry?" she quietly murmured. A large lorry trundled past obscuring her view and she found that when it had receded there was no one on the other side of the street. Her eyes must have been playing tricks on her, she thought, it would be quite ridiculous for Harry to follow her about London. He was the head of Counter-terrorism for God's sake. He had better things to do. It was only because she had been talking to Malcolm that the idea of Harry was now flitting below her consciousness - that's why she had imagined him. When she was in exile, she would see a dark overcoat or a head of thinning blond hair, or a black glove and she would catch her breath, thinking that it was Harry. It never was; he had never come for her.

As she stood with her thoughts, a taxi pulled up, the driver enquiring if she needed a ride. She scrambled into the back and after telling him her destination, turned around to see if she was being followed. For the first time in three years, she was disappointed to see that she was not.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The room was hot; a trickle of sweat moved slowly down her spine, her wrists ached, a red welt growing on the right one where the plastic was chafing the skin. Her mouth was paper dry and she was unable to swallow. A weight pressed down on her shoulder and she could feel the prick of cold metal at her throat. If only she could scream, they would come to help her. A band of fear constricted around her chest, she was unable to draw air into her lungs. Without warning, a face loomed before her and looked straight into her eyes. She screamed.

Ruth sat straight up in bed, the sound of her scream still ringing in her ears, her heart thundering with such force she thought it might break free from her body. She reached her hand out to find George, but he was not there. Slowly, as the darkness of the room gave way to shapes she realised she was not in Cyprus. A strangled sob escaped from her throat. How many nights would she do this? Wake believing that his death had been a dream. How many nights would Mani's face come back to haunt her? She struggled to untangle herself from the bedclothes, whimpering with frustration, her heart still beating frantically in her chest. She hurriedly turned on the bedside lamp, not wanting the company of shadows that night. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, taking deep breaths in an attempt to steady her trembling hands.

She rose and stumbled towards the bathroom. Fumbling with the switch, she turned on the light, bathing the room in stark fluorescent reality. She looked in the mirror, running her hand over her throat, needing reassurance that it had not been cut.

She opened up the mirrored door to the medicine chest and took out a small plastic bottle. Cursing the tamper proof lid, she pried open the bottle, spilling an array of pills into her hand. When the doctor had offered her the prescription, she had not thought twice about accepting them but now questioned the wisdom of that decision, wondering if there would ever come a night when she wouldn't need them. She looked down at the pills resting in her palm, harmless, indeed a help if taken in the correct dose. Why not take the whole bottle and be done with the nightmares, she asked herself. Don't be an idiot, was the response. She replaced the contents but for two and turned on the faucet, cupping the water in her still shaking hands to swallow the pills and then splashed the rest on her face. As she patted her face dry with a towel, something moved in her peripheral vision. She spun around, panic heightening her senses. Nothing. Logically, she knew she was overreacting, but at three in the morning, logic was nowhere to be found; it was comfortably sleeping, giving way to fear and imagination. She leaned back against the washbasin vanity for support. She turned back to the mirror, shocked at her haggard expression. It should be of no surprise really, her last decent night sleep had been in Cyprus. She could not continue to live like this, in a strange house, with towels that did not smell of her.

Walking back to her bed, she mulled over her decision to go back to GCHQ. Was that really the answer? No matter where she went, her past would follow her, trailing behind like a broken dream. She had put off looking for a flat, thinking she would be returning to Cheltenham. This is madness, she thought, this half-life, neither here nor there. She needed a strategy, a means to chisel away at the fear. She sat down on the bed and ran her fingers over the tiny grey box on her nightstand. The silver necklace, her one frivolous possession. That needed to change. She would buy an armload of books, after all a room without books is like a body without a soul. Was that Cicero? She couldn't remember. She would find a giant mug with her name on it and adopt a cat. Or a dog. A really big dog.

As she reached for her phone, wondering at the time, her fingers clumsily brushed over the screen, opening her list of contacts. Harry's number was at the top. Her thumb hovered over it. It would be so easy to call him. Ask him to come over. As a friend. Or more. If only she were that sort of woman. Oh, how she wished she was that sort of woman. Hadn't he said there would always be something else? Perhaps she had misinterpreted him. Surely, he didn't expect her waltz back into his arms? She gave a crooked smile as she realised that she had never been in his arms. Only to say goodbye.

She flopped back onto the bed letting out a huge sigh. Her arm stretched out over the empty side of the bed. She missed George, missed the comfort of his touch. She recalled how when she had first met George she felt as if she was betraying Harry and now to even entertain a softening towards Harry made her feel unfaithful to George. To sort out this web of feelings would take a strength she did not possess at three in the morning. Everything about Harry, about them, was weighted down by death. No relationship could possibly survive surrounded by so many ghosts. Oh Jo, what am I to do? For now, she spoke to Jo, as well as the other shadows that kept her company. She needed to speak to the living and she knew she could not speak to Harry.  
...

There was a rip in the leather chair, imperceptible to the eye, but she could sense it with the soft pad of her finger. She traced over it, feeling the rough texture of the tear beside the smoothness of the material. She quelled the urge to dig her nails under the fabric and pull it all away. She knew she needed to be here, but she felt like a horse resisting the bridle, that this was somehow Harry's idea and not her own.

"How are you, Ruth?"

Ruth looked up at the woman sitting across from her, sitting in an identical leather chair, its fabric even and unblemished.

What was her name Marianne? Miranda? No, that was the last one. This one was different. More relaxed. Madeline. That was it. It made Ruth think of twelve little girls in two straight lines. Orphans. An unbidden picture of Nico flashed through her mind, sending a sliver of pain through her heart. She would not let it show. She kept her eyes steady, wondering if she could maintain a neutral face and ultimately unsettle this woman. She levelled her gaze at the psychologist. "How do you think I feel?"

The woman carried on, undaunted, "Angry, hurt, helpless."

Ruth continued to look at her, unflinching while secretly conceding to herself that this woman had probably dealt with minds far greater than hers in the art of resisting interrogation. Had Adam sat in this chair; running his finger over the very same rip?

"You don't know anything about me." Ruth challenged. She was not going to make this easy.

"I know that your husband was killed and that you witnessed it."

How very cold and clinical it sounded when one phrased it that way, wiped clean of the messy drip of emotion.

"Jo was shot. Did you know that?"

"Joanna Portman? Yes, I did."

How did she know about Jo? No doubt, the doctors informed of every tragedy that occurred in the Service; prepared for the broken to appear before them. She looked down at her hand, rubbing her ringless fingers together.

"Ruth," the psychologist continued, "The problem with walls, is that while they do a good job of keeping things in, they also keep everyone out."

"I didn't get a chance..." Ruth trailed off not knowing how to complete the thought. Talk to her, laugh with her, cry with her. "It was my first day back. There wasn't any time ..." her voice failed her again. Adam, Zaf, Jo. Gone. No one remained who knew her. There was no one to tell her who she was. She wanted to claw her fingers under the rip in that chair, pull back the leather and scream. She inhaled a shaky breath. "I died, you know. Twice."

The psychologist leaned back in her chair, giving Ruth a puzzled look.

"You think I'm crazy," continued Ruth, "Well, that's why I'm here isn't it?"

"No, I think you're in pain. And I'm here to listen." She said it with such softness that Ruth closed her eyes, feeling her facade slip away. Why couldn't it be Jo in that chair, listening, each of them healing one another? It had been such a long time since she had felt gentleness that Ruth felt door unlock within her.

"Tom said-"she stopped short.

"You can say anything," Madeline prompted, "Nothing goes beyond this room."

Ruth realized she needed to speak, not because she trusted this woman, but because she knew if her thoughts rattled around inside her head any longer, they would spill out at an inopportune time and she would lose control. It was always about control.

"Tom said that he kept his real self in a box, so that when he shed a legend he knew what to come back to, he would never lose the sense of who he was. I didn't do that because I thought I was never coming back. So she's gone, that Ruth." She illustrated the point by waving her hand and paused, wondering if it was a sign of mental instability that she was speaking about herself in the third person. She didn't know, she didn't care, the words continued to pour out. "I had to create a new Ruth. She didn't care about the machinations of the world. She lived with a lovely man and a lovely boy, in a beautiful house by the sea."

It had all been so real, so tangible. She could close her eyes and be there. She could hear the lull of the surf, inhale the tangy aroma from her garden, feel the breeze gently lifting her hair, the sun warming her face; all she had to do was open her eyes to its dazzling brightness. She opened her eyes, but it was to a room covered with dark panels, lit by a lamp casting a green glow. "I lost it all because of him. Both times, because of him."

"Who?" the psychologist prodded.

Ruth's fingers wandered back to the rip. She would not give up his name. It was wrapped and filed away and she would not show it to this stranger.

It was so easy to put the blame squarely at his feet and ignore the fact that she had chosen to run back to him when she was in danger. That if she were to look any deeper into the vortex of her swirling thoughts and emotions, it would always be Harry at the still point, at the centre. The truth is she didn't want to look any deeper into herself, afraid that George might have been a placeholder, which he wasn't, she had loved him, she was sure of that.

Mani's men had been the catalyst, the resounding reason to return. She knew the moment she boarded the plane that every step was taking her back to him. Just as she knew, that when Mani's men opened the door to that room, she would find Harry. It still felt like a dream, for nothing had prepared her for the reality of him, the room heavy with his scent, as he sat there weary, dishevelled, aged. Her mind assessing what had changed, what had not, as memories that she had locked away spilled over into her conscious; a silk tie with a gold stripe, a wool jacket, cologne, hands, hips, breath, lips. She had sat there fighting the surreal quality of the moment, trying to maintain the reality of her new life. He sat there as raw and unprepared as she was, asking the one question he had no right to ask, revealing his weakness, trying to dismantle her armour.

She did not have to explain her choices, her emotions, her feelings. She had carved a new life for herself without him, using her own ingenuity, tapping into her own resources, not needing help from anyone. She had found a home and someone to love. In the end it did not matter, it had been lost with a single gunshot. She could still hear her own screams echoing in her in her ears as the broken shards of her life poured out.

"I thought if I came back to here, I could find myself again, amongst the people who knew me. But they're all dead. He's the only one left."

"Who, Ruth?"

"It was a long time ago. I was another person."

"Was there something between the two of you?"

"It was never said..."

"Do you still have feelings for him?"

Feeling of all shapes and sizes, thought Ruth. Her mouth was dry, her voice came out in a whisper; "He would have let my son die." It was a confession, a need for absolution. "If I have feelings for a man like that, what sort of person does that make me?"


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The Grid hummed along like a hive, the intermittent whirr of the overhead ventilation carrying over the murmur of voices. Ruth sat at her monitor, watching a parade of numbers scroll across her screen. Her mind clicked along with them, searching for patterns, anomalies, any spike in activity. She was trawling through the data compiled from the mobile towers in the vicinity of Samuel Walker's fatal accident. Or murder, as the evidence was beginning to show. There was a link between him and the meeting in Basel; she just had to connect the dots. She closed her eyes and rubbed her right temple with her fingers.

How easy it had been to slip back into the skin of an analyst, protected by a wall of facts, armoured with folders of intelligence. During the last briefing, she had coolly passed over the blood-splattered resume of a former MI6 agent without a thought for life behind it. She wondered if she should be worried at this calcification of her heart. After delivering her information, she had listened to Harry with a serene detachment, feeling divorced from herself, flawlessly carrying on in her role as Analyst to his Section Chief. She had come to the conclusion that if she was a woman divided she could also parse Harry into two separate entities One, the immaculately tailored man she sat beside during briefings, confident, commanding, efficiently discharging orders. She would trust her life to that man. The other one she had relegated to the back of her mind; the disheveled man who sat across from her in that horrible room, powerless, vulnerable, stubborn, willing to sacrifice everything. She had not found a way to reconcile herself with that man. All she needed to do in order to function was to keep these two personas apart.

The numbers on her screen continued to swim hypnotically before her eyes and she let her mind wander. Since their conversation in the corridor, Harry had been polite and courteous towards her, sharing information, seeking out her opinion, but she knew him well enough to sense that he was keeping a calculated distance. There was something missing from their interactions. In the past, he would find a reason to hover near her desk, moving into her personal space, leaning over her shoulder to look at her computer, a soft breath on her neck, his voice in her ear, a not so accidental brush of his fingers, the quiver she would feel at the thrill of it all, always wondering if-

"Ruth."

She sat up straight, hoping her expression didn't betray her thoughts. Harry stood on the other side of her desk, looking down, studying her intently.

"Any luck?" he asked. Ruth shook her head. He gestured with his hand. "I'm out for a moment." He punctuated the brevity of their conversation with a nod and walked away.

Ruth watched as Ros joined him. They walked towards the pods, shoulder to shoulder, their heads bent together in conversation. She noticed that Ros wore her leather jacket, but Harry was not in his overcoat. They must be heading for the roof, she thought. For some strange reason, this conclusion made her stomach constrict. She quickly lowered her eyes to her lap, focusing on her hands, as she searched for a meaning of her reaction. There had been a time when she had been the one to walk beside Harry, his head bent towards her, conversing in hushed tones. Why should the sight of the two of them together affect her so? Ros was his Section Chief after all. Surely, it wasn't jealousy. She didn't want anything from him, as she had said, or intimated by what she had not said, which was the way they had always said things.

A deep voice broke through her thoughts, "They're pretty tight, aren't they?"

Ruth turned to look over at the desk where Lucas sat. His gaze was directed at his monitor so she wasn't entirely sure if he had actually spoken to her.

"They both took Adam's death pretty hard." This time, he looked up at her.

Ruth's face softened at the mention of Adam's name. She turned to face Lucas fully, hoping to keep him engaged in conversation. "Can you tell me what happened to him?"

Lucas took a deep breath, unfolding his limbs as he stretched in his chair, pausing to order his thoughts. "I had just returned. It was Remembrance Sunday, there were poppies everywhere. There was this young soldier who had been kidnapped. We rescued him, but it turned out that it was all a ruse. There had been a bomb planted in a car near a memorial service. There was no time to diffuse it. The only option was to get the car far enough away from a populated area. I don't know if there was any discussion, Adam just did it. If only there had been more time. He didn't make it."

Ruth nodded, tilting her chin up to fight the lump of tears constricting in her throat. The end of a life reduced to a few sentences. For her, there would always be two images of Adam, the one she chose to remember, the brash charmer seconded from Six and the one she didn't like to dwell on, the man who slowly unravelled from the death of his wife. She thought of Wes, another child made orphan by the Service.

Lucas closed his eyes and passed his hand over his face. "We think when we come back everything will be the same. Everyone will still be here."

Her mind turned over and fell into studying Lucas. After the ordeal with Mani, when a sea of CO19 uniforms had separated her from Harry, it had been Lucas to whom she had turned. He had let her sob uncontrollably into his shoulder and then gently escorted her down to a waiting ambulance. At that point, she had been too battered and shell-shocked to gauge the measure of the man who helped her. Now she looked at the dark figure that had hovered at the periphery of her life. She hadn't investigated him thoroughly, having only gleaned sketchy details of his past by surreptitiously looking into his file. She felt in turn that he was assessing her with his hooded grey eyes. So intense. He reminded her of Tom Quinn. She marveled how the grid had not ignited with the two of them working on the same team.

"What happened to Tom?" Lucas asked.

Ruth brows shot up, startled that his thoughts were following the same path. "Oh...well...God, what didn't happen to the poor man? I don't know if you could say it was one thing. He was framed, thought drowned, ultimately he had to clear his own name." She paused for a moment to see if she could possibly distill the demise of that man's career into a few words. "I guess, you could say, in the end he couldn't reconcile his conscience with his actions."

"No such trouble with you?" Lucas asked with an arched brow, a brief smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"I just analyse the data," she answered with her own wan smile.

"I'm sure you do more than that, Ruth," he countered, this time his smile becoming wider.

What did he mean? Was he insinuating there was something between her and Harry? He must have guessed there was a history between them, seeing that Mani had used her as leverage. She had been very careful on the Grid, never alluding to any past with Harry. Had she been overly familiar at some point? She stopped the direction of her thoughts. Don't be ridiculous, she told herself. Had she become so inept at human interaction that she couldn't hold an everyday conversation without reading paranoid speculation into every comment? Perhaps this man was just like her, searching for meaning in all the madness. He only wanted answers. "Harry decommissioned Tom in the middle of an op," she continued, realizing as the words came out of her mouth that she may be imparting classified information. "The trust was lost."

"He trusted Connie," Lucas continued, "and that didn't work out so well."

"Connie was-?"

"The analyst before you. Or after you, depending on how you look at it."

She knew who Connie was; the woman's fingerprints were all over the Section, along with a great number of large intelligence holes, but while she knew the name, she knew nothing of the woman. Connie had taken her place and the Grid had apparently chugged along without her. It should not have bothered her, but it did, knowing that someone else had written up the daily threat assessment, collated flags from GCHQ and most importantly, been the conduit of information to Harry.

Lucas continued, "It all fell apart with Sugarhorse." He stopped as he realised that this could be considered classified information.

"Sugarhorse?" Ruth perked up. She had never heard of this code name, perhaps it was a clue to the missing intelligence.

"Harry was never particularly straight with me about that," Lucas admitted, sidestepping the subject, "He trusts you, though, doesn't he? He told you about Basel before he told the rest of us."

Ruth contemplated his words for a moment, working it into her earlier thoughts on Harry and Ros. True, she was the one Harry had confided in, telling her to keep it strictly between them.

Lucas continued on, "I'm still not sure he trusts me."

"Why would you say that?" she asked, taken aback by the thought.

"My need to meet up with Desharvin, eight years in a Russian prison, my wife working for the FSB; take your pick."

"Your wife?" There was a hint of surprise in her tone, which she immediately chastised herself for displaying. He was a good-looking man, why shouldn't he have been married. He was dating the CIA liaison after all. Just like Tom. She realized she had made an assumption, pegged him as a lone wolf, he having never displayed towards her the charm offered up by Adam or Zaf. But then she had never really spoken to him, joked with him, teased him the way she would have done with Adam and Zaf. It could well be that Lucas thought of her as sullen and morose, which she wasn't, there once being a time in her life when laughter had fallen easily from her lips.

"Elizabeta," he said the name like a caress. " I thought of her every day for eight years. It was all I had to hold onto. She remarried when I was in prison," he elaborated, an air of resignation in his voice.

"I'm sorry." For the first time since Jo, Ruth felt a stirring of compassion, an acknowledgement that there was another person besides her dealing with pain. She couldn't imagine eight years in a Russian prison; what had it done to this man? She had barely survived one day in a room. Strange, how loss on a grand scale left her numb, but the suffering of an individual always moved her.

Lucas looked at Ruth intently. "Are you okay...are you coping with everything?" He spoke with a kindness she did not expect. He rolled his chair closer to her. She felt drawn to him, as the wounded always were towards each other. Or maybe it was she, pulling him in, looking for a tether to keep herself from floating away on her own grief.

"How do you...how do you carry on?" she whispered.

He leaned in towards her, his elbows on his knee, as he clasped his hands together. "Don't let them get in your head; that's how they win."

Ruth massaged her forehead. If only it were so easy to control one's thoughts.

"Have you been sleeping?" he asked, looking at her with concern.

Did it show? The dark circles under her eyes, her hair a slightly unkempt, her clothes a little rumpled. She moved her chair closer, keeping her voice low. "I see him every night in my dreams. And there's nothing I can do but scream." Her body tensed with remembrance. Had she said too much? Exposed herself? It felt strangely right to be telling this to Lucas. The psychologist would never understand. You could only know if you had been there.

"Desharvin wasn't only in my dreams; I would see him in a crowd, or around a corner, always there. That's why I needed to meet him face to face. How do to you get rid of the monster in your dreams? You turn around and face him."

Ruth nodded and looked down at her fingers. She took a deep breath. "It's not just him."

Lucas ran his finger through his hair and glanced around the grid. He turned back to her and spoke her name. "Ruth." She kept her eyes down. "Ruth, look at me." She looked up and into his eyes, he held her with his gaze, as if he were giving her strength. "Every day I sat in that cell, I cursed Harry. I still blame him, even though I know it makes no difference now. I felt expendable, I began to believe what they drilled into my head, that Service had forgotten about me. But he didn't forget. It took a long time, but he got me out."

Ruth looked at him with wonder. He knew. He understood. She wanted to ask him if he felt whole. Was he able to find love again with the CIA agent? Had he forgiven Harry? She felt the urge to reach out and touch him, to find a bond with another human being, but before she had time to act a beep emitted from her computer terminal. The sound broke the connection between them and they both straightened up, silently acknowledging that something had passed between them.

"You better see what that's about." He motioned to her screen, as he rolled his chair back to his desk, a regretful smile on his lips.

Ruth turned back to her terminal. She stared at the screen, waiting for the analytical part of her brain to overtake the emotional side. She cleared her throat and noticed that the search parameters had filtered the phone numbers down to a manageable list. Her fingers swiftly clicked over the keys as she logged the numbers, searching for the owners. A familiar thrill washed over her. This was the part she relished, that tantalising moment before a piece of the puzzle fell into place. She read over the list of names. Her breath stopped. She schooled her face to remain neutral. She looked above the monitor at the dark head of the man sitting across from her. Shit.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The soft scuff of Ruth's footsteps echoed around the stairwell. She hadn't remembered there being so many stairs, but then again there were a great many things she hadn't remembered correctly. She wound her way upwards and tried to recall the last time she had been on the roof of Thames House. She stopped, a foot poised on the tread. It had been the day Harry had asked her out on a date. Her chest constricted at the divine sweetness of the memory. He had looked younger, away from the fluorescent lights of the Grid. Or perhaps it was because he had been looking at her. He had pantomimed two bread rolls while doing an endearing impression of Charlie Chaplin, and her heart had melted with such completeness that she had glowed in the aftermath. She had been unable to meet his eyes, acting coyly nonchalant, when in reality she had been trembling inside. The sheer delight and unfolding promise of that single moment. Where had it all gone wrong? It had been her; she knew that. She had panicked; gotten cold feet, refused him a second date and then events had pushed together, collapsing their lives like a row of dominoes. She could not possibly talk to him in a place so potent with memory. She half turned around, planning to go back down the stairs. There were so many pockets of memory in the building and she couldn't avoid them all. Surely, it didn't matter. Harry could not be as sentimental as she was. She changed her mind and grabbed onto the steel of the handrail, determined to continue her journey to the top of the stairs.

It would be better, she thought, if he were on the roof, a semi-private place to deliver semi-devastating news. She was always the messenger, the bearer of bad news. She had long ago accepted her role as the one who culled the data, looking for that piece of information that would destroy someone. This time, it was the man with whom she had just had a rather heartfelt conversation and the piece of data, a cell phone number belonging to his girlfriend. That CIA woman, Sarah Caufield. Shit.

They were not supposed to engage in relations with Foreign Operatives. It was a commandment. Harry had been livid with Tom over his relationship with an American agent, so she was puzzled as to why he had not been so strict with Lucas. Ruth felt a moment of unease, as she considered Harry might have some ulterior reason for letting the relationship continue. She was glad she hadn't delved any deeper into Lucas' personal life. It would have been ten times worse to discover that he had finally found love again, only for her to turn around and ruin it. She already felt like she was betraying him, that he had confided in her and this was how she repaid him, by exposing his girlfriend as a possible killer.

The metal door to the outside world loomed before her and she stood inside collecting herself. She smoothed down her skirt, preparing herself for Harry's anger. On numerous occasions, she had stood in the wake of his temper, letting it wash over her, trying not to take his words personally. The vein at his left temple would bulge to such an extent that she had wanted to tell him to calm down, that it was utterly ridiculous to be mad; that anger couldn't change the facts. As she brushed her hair behind her ear, she realised that since her return she had not witnessed Harry's temper. He wasn't as abrasive towards the team, there had been no comments verging on the unseemly, he had remained calm at the briefings. Could he have mellowed in the intervening years? She placed her hand on the door handle. Perhaps he would take this better than she anticipated.

The door creaked open on its metal hinges. The hollow sound of the wind rushed through the adjoining buildings and the distant rumble of traffic filled her ears. She squinted into the sunshine, adjusting her eyes from the dimness of the Grid. A sense of disappointment fell like a stone in her stomach as she realised that the figure leaning against the balustrade was not Harry, but Ros. Ruth stood, not quite sure what to do, the urge, of course, being to walk away. Fast. It was too late, Ros had noticed her.

"Sorry, I was looking for Harry."

"Well, if you don't know where he is, none of us do," Ros said in her usual laconic manner. "Is it about Jack?"

"No. We haven't found a connection between him and the murdered agents."

Ros turned away, leaving Ruth to stand in limbo, swaying slightly as the wind played with her hair. Since her return, Ros had treated her with cool professionalism and polite courtesy. They were colleagues, and Ruth had been happy with the status quo, having remembered the harsh abrasiveness of the earlier Ros. As she stood regarding the Section Chief, she noticed something about the other woman's posture. She wouldn't go so far as to categorise it as fragility, more of a brittleness. It was as though Ros had been broken apart and pieced back together, creating sharp edges and on closer inspection, a few cracks. Ros continued to look down onto the street, the fringe of her white blonde hair hiding her face. What do you do with the monster in your dreams? Ruth walked over to her, careful to maintain a respectful distance.

"Are you all right?"

"As well as can be expected after narrowly escaping a bomb planted by a former mentor."

Ruth nodded. She suspected this fractured reunion with Jack Colville was taking a toll on Ros. But that wasn't what she had meant. Her talk with Lucas had loosened something inside her and she felt the need to press on. "I mean, how are you?"

Ros' shoulders stiffened as she realised what Ruth had meant. She kept her gaze out over the city. "How do you think I am?"

Ruth gave a derisive huff, causing Ros to turn and look at her. "That's what I said when someone asked me the same question," Ruth elaborated. The two women looked at each other, aware that they both stood on a similar plateau of loss.

Ros curled her fingers around the rail, her knuckles becoming white from the pressure. "Are we always destined to eat our own?"

"You did what you had to do." For some reason, Ruth felt compelled to say those words, not knowing if she needed to assure Ros, or alleviate her own sense of grief. She was of course fully aware of her own hypocrisy, in that she could say this to Ros about Jo but she could not bring herself to say it to Harry and his decisions with Mani.

"I don't need your forgiveness," Ros countered.

Ruth narrowed her eyes. Why was this woman so unyielding. "Forgiveness for what?" Ruth asked, her question laced with the subtext they both knew lingered between them. Cotterdam.

"So many transgressions, it must be hard to pick just one," Ros said with an air resignation to her voice.

Ruth placed her hands on the railing, flexing her fingers on the smooth metal and pulled herself forward to look out over the vista. Laid there before her was the city she had lost. When she had last looked out over it, she had only seen bomb threats and terror cells, now she absorbed it in all its blemished beauty.

"Not that you much care, but I think Mace would have found a way to get at Harry, you just accelerated the process. I was his weakness. Sacrifices had to be made."

"Regnum Defende, Ruth, whatever the cost. Tell me, was the price worth it?"

"I had a good life in Cyprus, one I never thought I'd have, Harry was able to carry on, and Mace was exposed. You could say from an operational standpoint it was a success." Ruth hazarded a sidelong glance at Ros and hoped the other woman would understand what was implied. The success of the operation came at a great personal cost.

"At least you got Cyprus. When I died they sent me to Siberia."

"When you died?"

"Yes. Except I wasn't in on the plan, so when I woke up in a coffin it was a bit of a shock."

"What? How?"

Ros' hand rose to her throat, she smoothed her slender fingers over her neck. "Injection. Yalta. Yet another conspiracy to realign the geopolitical map." As she spoke the words, she wondered if this was top-secret information, but then again, she was telling Harry's little confidant, did it really matter? "At least when you returned you had Harry. Adam was ..." Ros trailed off, folding back into herself. She had said too much.

"You and Adam?" Ruth absorbed the information but had no idea how to process it. In her mind, it had always been Adam and Fiona, him carrying on, working through his grief, always true to his wife's memory. The idea of Adam with all his charm and Ros with her haughtiness; Ruth furrowed her brow as she tried to formulate a mental picture.

"There was nothing. There was never time," Ros spoke quickly trying to recover her cool demeanour.

It was too late. Ruth knew she had uncovered a weak spot and with that came a slight thrill of power, which in turn gave her an unsettling glimpse into the workings of Harry's mind. Isn't that what he excelled at; manipulating weakness? Hadn't he done that with her and Angela Welles? Here was a fissure in Ros' armour that she could manipulate, if she was that kind of person. She turned and looked squarely at Ros, the cracks more evident; she had not come away unscarred - the death of Jo, losing Adam, playing a role in Ruth's exile. Adam and Jo were gone, and here she was, back to remind Ros of her father's treachery and the ensuing fallout from her anger over his imprisonment. What did Ros have left, she wondered.

"We all need someone," Ruth spoke into the wind.

"Needing people is a weakness," Ros answered tersely.

Ruth sighed at those words. She should hate this woman, and if asked at this moment, wasn't sure if she would ever be able to forgive her for Jo, but she only felt a deep sadness. What sense of self-preservation or more likely, sense of self-destruction made this woman keep everyone at arm's length.

They stood in silence sifting through their own thoughts. Finally, Ruth broke through it. "I've requested to go back to GCHQ."

"What?" Ros turned to look at her, the shock evident on her face. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

Ruth had not expected that reaction. She had assumed that Ros would be secretly pleased to have the living reminder of her failings out the way.

"We need you. Harry needs you. You're the first one he went to about Basel." Ros wasn't able to conceal her continuing annoyance that she had been left out of Harry's confidence. "You have a brilliant mind. Although what else he sees in you I'll never understand."

Ruth let out a little laugh in spite of herself. "You have this unique way of wrapping and insult inside a compliment."

"It's a gift." A hint of a smile ghosted across Ros' face. "In all seriousness, while you were gone Harry wasn't as... cautious as he should have been."

"Care to elaborate?"

"How about handing himself over to Victor Sarkisiian for starters. Hiring Connie, the business with Kachimov."

Connie. There was that name again.

"You said yourself, needing people is a weakness." Ruth countered. "Someone else may very well use me against Harry again, even though there's nothing between us."

Ros gave Ruth an incredulous look "How can someone so bright be so dense?" Ruth, in turn, stared back at Ros as if she had two heads. "Listen, I'm not playing matchmaker here. Harry needs people he can trust."

"What about us, Ros, what about you and me? Who is looking after our needs?"

"I don't know," said Ros, a note of irritation creeping into her voice, "I don't think about that. It gets in the way of doing the job."

"What's the use of doing this job if there's nothing left of ourselves?"

"If you were truly happy, living your life outside the service, go back and do it. But I doubt that you were happy. Someone with your intellect, with your curiosity, everything you've had been through. People like us can never leave. We've seen the evil others are truly capable of. We don't get to go home at night and close our eyes and have nice dreams."

Ruth recoiled at the harshness of Ros' words, stung by the truth of what the other woman was saying, shaken that she had voiced the same sentiment to Jo. It was true, they knew that events were whitewashed, downplayed, where the bodies were buried and for that reason they would never have the rest of the innocent.

Ros inhaled a shaky breath. "Harry has lost too many people. I've lost too many people. I'm not the same woman I was all those years ago and I would hazard a guess you're not the same either. It may be hard to believe, but I would rather not lose you again."

Ruth had no idea what to say to this completely unexpected admission. She removed her hand from the railing only to have Ros reach out and grab it, holding on to her arm with the grip of a drowning woman.

"Think about it, we were all lost to him, you, myself, Lucas. There was nothing he could do. Don't you think he carried that guilt around? If I can't alleviate my own guilt, I sure as hell am not going to add to Harry's. We're a team, Ruth, this is all we have. No one will ever understand what we've been through."

A gust of wind blew Ruth's hair in front of her eyes, and she swore she could hear a grinding sound as her world stopped and then started up again rotating in opposite direction. She looked at Ros, a woman like herself, stumbling under guilt. She gave weight to Ros' words that the three of them had been taken from Harry and he had been left alone with the guilt. It was true; no one else could understand the life they had chosen.

"You're right," Ruth acquiesced. Ros looked at her, not quite believing that Ruth was agreeing with her. "We're a team. And you're not alone, so if you ever need-"

Ros let go of Ruth's arm as if it was on fire. Ruth felt the loss; Ros had been one of the few people to touch her since her return. She waited, wondering if they could re-establish this strange rapport they had created. Sensing that there was no response in the offing from Ros, Ruth shrugged her shoulders and turned to leave.

"Just so you know," Ros' called after her, "I don't do friends."

Ruth stopped, squinting in Ros' direction, a slight smile playing on her lips. "But if you did?" There it was laid before them, a truce between the broken.

With that, Ruth moved to the door and entered the stairwell. As she closed it behind her, she remembered her original purpose and set off to find Harry. She decides it would also be prudent to warn him that his Section Chief was not as collected as she would have everyone believe. This was her team after all, she needed to look after them. She moved down the stairs, thinking about Ros. Perhaps, if she was capable of having a strangely candid conversation with Ros, she could find a way to talk to Harry.


	8. Chapter 8

_Thank you for the kind reviews and to all those who continue to read! One last member of the team before the man himself._

* * *

Chapter 8

An array of monitors blinked behind Ruth as she sat in the technical suite, carefully examining a photo. She traced her finger over the picture of a man sitting in a car, his face half shadowed by the window. Victor Chaterjee. It all made sense now, but the satisfaction she felt from connecting the dots was undermined by an all too familiar glimpse into the darker side of humanity. Chaterjee had orchestrated the beating of a young girl by a group of Muslim youths as a means to provoke her brother. Now Dhillon had formed a cell of young Hindu men, ready to exact retribution on the Muslim community. Chaterjee had found the linchpin, a way of creating ethnic tension that could lead to civil unrest and in turn destabilize the country, adding another layer to the Nightingale conspiracy. A child used as a pawn. Ruth looked at the face in the car and thought of Mani. She let out a heavy sigh. So many broken lives.

"I got you this."

Ruth looked up to see Tariq standing beside her, holding a Styrofoam cup. She gave him a quizzical look, having no recollection of asking him for anything.

"At the briefing the other day you said you couldn't find a decent cup of coffee and I know this Turkish place a few blocks over, so I thought you might like one." He held the cup towards her like a young boy in the schoolyard sharing his prize possession.

Her eyes blinked at the kindness of the gesture. A smile of gratitude spread across her face. "Thank you."

Tariq returned a crooked smile, clearly enjoying her reaction. He nodded and shrugged his shoulders. "No problem." He sat down at his desk and logged back onto the system.

Ruth leaned back in her chair, holding the cup in her hands, feeling the warmth radiate through her fingers. She carefully pried the lid off. Slowly, she brought it to her lips and she closed her eyes, relishing the scent, letting the rich aroma take her to another world. She carefully blew across the steam and took a sip. Ah, yes, that was coffee.

She opened her eyes and looked at Tariq, wondering what had made him think of her. She liked Tariq. Like him even more now that he had delivered such a treasure to her. There were days when she still missed Malcolm and his phlegmatic nature, but there were times when she was thankful for the young techie's unflagging energy. They had become quite efficient at balancing each other's strengths. She guided him through the labyrinth that was the intelligence world and he dragged her through the ever-changing technology of the cyber world. He was surprisingly easy to talk to, which Ruth found refreshing, for unlike the rest of the team he had not mastered the art of hiding his thoughts.

Ruth took another slow sip of her coffee and looked over the rim. She gingerly rolled her chair closer to his desk and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. "This is good coffee."

"Yeah, well, my parents feel the same way about the coffee here."

Of course, he had parents. He was just a boy, not old and jaded like the rest of them. When he brushed his hair from his eyes, he reminded Ruth of Nico. She noticed that he looked tired. "Aren't you supposed to be getting some rest. It's been a long day. Stressful."

"That's what this is for," he said motioning to the coffee. "Ros wants me on overnight with Lucas so I got him one too. I thought I'd use the time to recover the info on Sarah Caufield's memory stick. Still mad at myself for fouling up the decryption. She's good, but I'm better.

"So you're forgoing sleep in a bid to assert you technical supremacy." Ruth gave him a teasing smile. Whenever she had the chance she would gently joke with him, he being the only person on the Grid not yet buried under the burden of guilt and loss.

Tariq's fingers continued to tap across the keyboard, his head remained down. "Yeah, partly."

"Oh," said Ruth, "And what's the other part?"

"It's nothing," Tariq answered.

Ruth knew that nothing meant something. "It's okay, you can tell me," she coached.

Tariq's fingers stilled on the keyboard. He kept his face averted, focusing on the screen. "It was Jo who came to talk us, during training, about the Service and our personal lives..."

"Or lack thereof," Ruth added wryly.

"Yeah," Tariq huffed in agreement. "She was so...perfect. Beautiful and confident, everything we thought spying was about. Now, she's gone and I can't make sense of it."

In her session with the psychologist, her talk with Lucas, the encounter with Ros, Ruth had never thought that the one person she should have been talking to about Jo would be Tariq. That although Ruth had known Jo from before, there was a sense, that Tariq must have felt also, of barely being in the presence of a light before it was snuffed out. They moved closer together, cloistered by banks of monitors, removed from the bustle of the grid. They leaned forward with their elbows resting on the desk, heads bent together, as they lowered their voices to a whisper.

"I don't know how Ros does it," Tariq continued. "How does she cope with the guilt?"

"I'm not sure she is."

"Because I can't.

"You don't need to feel guilty about Jo."

"No. About the boy. I killed him."

"What are you talking about?"

"The other boy, Kam, I hacked into his phone and called him, to draw attention away from Ashok, they were going to figure out he was Muslim. I talked to him like he was the informant. So Dhillon shot him. I heard it over the phone. And Lucas just sat there, like there was nothing we could do."

"There was nothing you could do," replied Ruth. "Our surveillance would have been blown."

"But we were all right here when you pointed out that Ashok was just a boy and we were putting him in danger. They're all boys, Ruth. It could have been me if I had made different choices. We play with people's lives. What right do we have to do that?"

Her right hand gravitated to Tariq's forearm. She squeezed her fingers on his arm in a gesture of comfort, finding that in return the action held a comforting quality for her. She tried to remember the last time she had consciously touched someone, where the interaction had not been a bump against some stranger on the bus. She was at a loss to remember the last time she had been held, caressed, cherished. She left her hand on Tariq's arm, wanting him to feel he was not alone, secretly acknowledging that it was she who needed to feel the connection. "You didn't pull the trigger."

"I might as well have. He died because of what I said."

"They're planning a terror attack."

"But they haven't done it yet," Tariq asserted.

"That's not how it works. Our job is to stop the attack, not wait until it's done and then arrest the people involved."

"It's like we caused his death. We judged him and executed him."

"No, you can't think that way. Sometimes there has to be a sacrifice. The one for the many." Her words echoed in her ears bringing forth the ugly memory of her begging Harry to spare the one child that mattered to her. Does the end justify the means? She had turned that question over and over in her mind every time she thought about George and Nico, that day, that room, that split second in time.

"Does that help you sleep at night?" Tariq asked. Ruth's stilled the motion of her hand on his arm. He sensed her withdrawal and quickly spoke to clarify. "I mean Lucas just sat there, unfazed, like it didn't even affect him."

"We're desk spooks; we don't have to make the hard decisions. Agents in the field, they have to put their feelings aside, the success of an operation depends on it. Here behind a desk, we're allowed the luxury to feel, to question, but we are not at the centre of the decision, so we can't get to judge. That doesn't mean we should lose our sense of compassion or stop questioning if what we're doing is right, because once we do that, we become the very thing we're fighting." Ruth hoped it did not sound like a lecture, that Tariq could hear her own misgivings and realisations in her words.

"I don't know if I want to be a part of this anymore."

"I ask myself that question every night." Ruth closed her eyes. She had said those words years before to another young man. The conversation was veering dangerously close to the bone. Part of her wanted to pat him on the arm and say everything would be okay. Another part wanted to let everything pour out; dump all the pain she felt over George on this gentle young man. She knew she couldn't talk about George but there was someone else.

"I was in a similar situation with a colleague, a man I cared about."

Tariq raised his eyebrow.

"No, not like that," she admonished him with a little smile, "As a friend." She took a deep breath before she carried on. "I was sitting here, on the Grid, when I heard a the sound of a gunshot over my headset. It was like a dream. I thought that it was a mistake, that he had just been wounded or..." She stopped for a moment and swallowed the lump building in her throat. "It was horrible, I couldn't believe it, I was in shock. I felt helpless, it was my fault, I should have been able to do something."

"What could you have done?"

I don't know. Nothing. I was here and I couldn't do anything. There was another agent but he went off coms and I didn't know what was happening. I was scared, alone, powerless. Then Harry came and said we had a job to do, there were other lives at stake, there would be time to grieve later. I thought he was heartless. But he's not. Just as Lucas isn't isn't heartless either."

"Did you? Did you grieve for him?"

"His name was Danny, the man who died. Perhaps we need to say their names more often."

"Do you think we did that...you know, grieved for Jo."

"I think that the best way we can honour Jo and Danny is to keep on fighting, then the sacrifices they made won't be in vain."

Ruth tilted her head and gave Tariq a warm smile, looking into his dark brown eyes, hoping that he could see in her own that she understood what he was going through.

Tariq looked back at her, observing how her hair fell softly around her face, the dim lights of the tech suite making her look younger, colouring her eyes a deep blue. He gave her a slow nod. "I can see why Harry likes you."

The smile fell from Ruth's face and her eyes opened in surprise. "I'm sorry?"

"They way he looks at you, you know, protective. Like my Dad looks at my Mum. It's nice."

Her lips formed words, but she was unable to speak. She cleared her throat. A burning sensation took seed deep in her chest, she could feel a warmth creeping up her to throat and blossoming in her cheeks. "There's nothing, really."

Tariq raised an eyebrow at her words. "Oh. I thought I might have interrupted something the other night when you asked him out for a drink."

Ruth stared at him, her mouth hanging open in disbelief. Had he overheard that? She was saved the further embarrassment of more awkward denials by the sound of Ros' voice.

"Anything on Chaterjee?" asked Ros, standing in the doorway, oblivious to their conversation.

Ruth and Tariq straightened up in their chairs and hastily moved apart, no doubt giving the appearance of guilt. Ruth looked down at the file in front of her, randomly shuffling papers about, hoping the scarlet tinge had left her cheeks.

"Yes, I um, yes. Just collating. Be right there."

"Good."

Ros moved off leaving Ruth to gracelessly collect her files. She was well aware the Tariq was pretending to look at his monitor while trying to suppress a grin. She gave him a withering look as she grabbed her coffee and walked out.

As she crossed the Grid to, she surreptitiously looked over at Harry sitting in his office. He was busy talking on the phone, absorbed in conversation. She arrived at her desk and stood for a moment, watching him. When had he been looking at her and why hadn't she noticed?

She had been secretly relieved when Tariq had interrupted them. It had taken all her courage to ask Harry for a drink and it had seemed the opportune moment; he was reeling from the whole Blake affair. But she had thought he would say no, just as he had all those years ago after the death of Clive McTaggart. It had been an offer of friendship or more accurately an offer to resurrect their friendship. After all, as she had told Tariq, he wasn't a heartless man. He was asked to make decisions under intolerable circumstances. She wondered when was the last time someone had told Harry that he had made the right decision? When was the last time someone had touched him? Held him, comforted him? An image flashed across her mind of Harry in bed with a woman, their limbs wrapped around each other. She shook her head to clear the thought, but instead the woman morphed into herself and it became her limbs entwined with Harry's, moving in a tangle of bedsheets, sighing, panting, moaning. She blinked twice and let out a cleansing breath. Good God, what was she thinking?

She brought herself back to the presnet only to realise that Harry was staring at her from his office. She quickly looked away, bumbling into her chair and opened her file, trying to collect herself. She was sure the blush had returned to her cheeks, indeed, if it had ever left. She reached over to her coffee, silently acknowledging that caffeine was not the thing to steady her nerves and noticed there was writing on the cup. Ruth. Written in Tariq's scrawling hand. A cup with her name on it. And this one was unbreakable. Her thumb brushed over the letters. This is real, she thought. She looked aroung the Grid. These people are real. She reached up to her face and touched her cheek, still burning from her previous thoughts. Embarassment, how silly. But it was an emotion other than grief or guilt and it made her smile. For the first time since her return, she felt as if she were real.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Ruth never thought of it as multitasking, it was more a stream of consciousness, a current of ideas, each pushing into the next. She was at her desk fluidly moving between filing a report on the death of her asset, monitoring the chatter from GCHQ, and delving into the money trail of Nightingale. She paused for a moment when she felt a presence beside her chair. She did not look up, fearing she may lose the precious threads of her thoughts, formulating in her mind a response to whatever question he might have on Nightingale. She felt him lean down towards her, his breath on her neck, his voice in her ear.

"Is it time for that drink?"

Ruth raised her head sharply, the unexpected nature of the question catching her completely off guard. She turned to find Harry's face startlingly close to hers. She frowned trying to recall what drink he would be talking about and then remembered the offer she had made two weeks past.

"Oh...well, I..." She gestured towards her screen. "Aren't we-?"

"Aren't we always in the middle of an operation?" Harry finished her sentence, parroting her words from their previous conversation back to her. The corner of Ruth's mouth rose in a half smile. "Besides," he continued, "I believe there is a certain request we need to discuss."

The smile fell from Ruth's face. In all the chaos of the past few weeks, she had relegated the whole notion of GCHQ to the back of her mind, only taking it out at three o'clock in the morning to fret and brood over along with her other worries. She looked over at Tariq wondering if he would once again interrupt their plans with a declaration of urgent news, but he sat his terminal intently hacking hotel registries for guests with the last names of American Presidents. She nodded at Harry and closed down her system, as he stood waiting patiently.

...

From the habit of days long past, Ruth stepped out of the Thames House door and headed in the direction of the George. Harry stopped her with a touch to her elbow and shook his head, gesturing in the opposite direction. Ruth creased her brow in puzzlement to which Harry responded with a levelled look. Ruth nodded, understanding his meaning - they would find no privacy at the George. Their entire conversation had been conducted with looks, a skill that they had mastered years before and had apparently never lost.

Darkness had fallen early, the days of autumn now cut short by the nip of winter. Ruth pulled her coat tighter, glad that she had finally relented at bought herself a pair of gloves. Black leather, just like Harry's she noticed. They walked along through the streets, made bright from the lights of neon signs and shop windows. Their shoulders inadvertently brushed up against one another, as they navigated the bustle of people leaving work, going to work, leading ordinary lives.

Through the hum and whirr of traffic, Ruth heard the insistent chime of Harry's phone. Funny, Ruth thought, that even through the din they could still detect the ring of a phone. He pulled out his mobile and quickly became absorbed in a monosyllabic conversation, leaving Ruth to her own thoughts. She looked around, reacquainting herself with the city, feeling at once a sense of nostalgia and a sense of seeing this world for the first time. Harry closed up his phone and gave Ruth an exasperated look.

"Anything important?" she asked.

"Isn't it always?" Harry responded, dryly.

He steered her towards a staircase that led down from street level to an innocuous little pub. Holding the door open for her, his free hand came up to rest on the small of back as he ushered her inside. Ruth stopped, letting her eyes adjust the semi-darkness, feeling the increased pressure of Harry's hand firmly on her waist, the possessiveness of the gesture sending a shiver up her spine. She quickly stepped away from him.

The bartender looked up giving Harry a nod in recognition. Harry guided her through a scattering of tables where patrons sat, talking in hushed murmurs. The room was warm, the lights giving off an orange glow, reflecting against the dark wood of the walls. Ruth detected the faint scent of stale smoke, lingering in the upholstery from a time when cigarettes went in hand with a drink.

"Is this all right?" Harry asked, gesturing towards a booth.

"Yes. I like booths, there more..." she trailed off as if searching for the word. She wanted to say intimate, but somehow the word itself seemed too fraught with meaning.

"Private," Harry finished for her.

She nodded and reached to remove her coat before taking a seat. Harry stepped behind her, offering assistance, his fingers pausing for a moment on her collar. Ruth turned her head towards his hand and noticed an irregular crimson circle. Blood.

She had stood in the Ladies earlier that day, sponging the flecks of blood off her coat, mementos from a meet gone horribly wrong. There had been no sound of a gunshot that time, only a man collapsing on her lap. She had washed the blood out of her coat, feeling with each movement that she was scrubbing out the memory of what had happened, trying with all her effort to access what she and Tariq had talked about - that unnerving quality that field agents possessed, the ability to push through the horror of it all.

"I never liked this coat anyway," she joked weakly. It was true. She had hastily purchased it after disembarking from Cyprus, realising that her Mediterranean wardrobe was poor armour against English weather. She could remove the blood stains, but memories still clung to it, lingering like stale smoke. Memories of George and Nico and what she had done to their lives.

Harry looked into her eyes a concerned expression on his face. He opened his mouth as if to speak and then thought the better of it. He hung their coats up on the pegs beside the booth. "What will you have?"

"Wine. White, please."

Ruth sat down, her eyes following Harry as he crossed to the bar. He leaned against the rail as any ordinary man would, bantering with the bartender, laughing in turn as the man responded. Ruth looked on in fascination, having so rarely seen this part of Harry, wondering when she had last heard him laugh. She quickly looked away as he headed back towards the booth. He placed a glass of wine before her and sat down with a pint of his own.

"No whisky?" Ruth asked, surprised.

"I have been known to enjoy a good stout on occasion."

He lifted his glass in the silent gesture of a toast. Ruth raised her own glass, noticing the transparency of her wine in contrast with the opaque nature of his lager.

"You're a regular here," she said, more of an observation than a question.

"I frequent this establishment, but I wouldn't say I'm regular," he replied, an ever so subtle hint of teasing creeping into his voice.

"Is this where you bring all your girls?" she asked, echoing his teasing tone. She quickly glanced away from him, having no idea what had come over her to say such a flirtatious line. And not even a glass of wine in her. It was the dimness of the pub, the privacy of the booth, the warmth of the room. She would have to be careful; she had made a promise to herself to keep things strictly professional.

"I wasn't aware this was a date, Ruth." He punctuated the sentence by using her name, owning it as if by saying it he would always be able to draw her closer.

"It's two colleagues having a drink," she responded, not wanting the conversation to stray into dangerous territory.

"Because if it was a date," he continued, "I would have taken you out to dinner."

He took a sip of his drink, looking at her over the rim, letting his words hang in the air between them. He held her with his eyes even as he put down his drink, his fingers flexing on the glass. She sat perfectly still as if suspended, unable to break the lock of his gaze. Time collapsed and stretched between them, the memory of their dinner date rising as if it had only a happened yesterday. Her mouth felt dry and she realised she had had forgotten to breathe. She swallowed and looked down at her drink, her fingers sliding along the smooth stem of the glass. She took a long sip of her wine, glancing around the room, reminding herself that she needed to keep the conversation on track.

"I thought we were her to discuss my ..." she cleared her throat before saying the word, "request."

"And what have you decided, re your request."

She bit her bottom lip, taking her time, wondering if it was at all possible to unnerve this man - if delaying her response would make him doubt her decision. She stalled by taking another drink. "You can tear it up."

"I already did."

Ruth pursed her lips together, her eyes glaring at him. He had probably never taken the whole incident seriously. He had made up his mind she was going to stay and that would be the outcome. He had not done anything overt to dissuade her; in fact, he had kept his distance, letting her become entangled by her own curiosity and compassion.

He was studying her, his eyes moving over her face as if a ticker tape of thought ran across her forehead. Was she so easy to read?

"What changed your mind?" he asked.

Ruth knew that the question was only a concession to make her think she had exercised some free will in the matter. She would not give him the satisfaction of thinking that he had any bearing on her decision. "Ros." Harry's brow shot up. Ruth smiled inwardly. He hadn't seen that one coming had he.

"And what did she do to persuade you?"

"She said she wasn't the same woman she was three years ago," Ruth looked pointedly at Harry, "that we're a team and we need to be there for each other.

Ruth felt strangely light, whether from imparting the weight of her thoughts to Harry or from the dwindling wine in her glass; she wasn't sure.

Harry leaned back in his seat. "That's good because it's hell trying to find a decent analyst."

Ruth let her gaze travel over the room. "Yes, well, we wouldn't want you to go to all that bother now, would we?" a sliver of sarcasm lacing her voice as her eyes finally settled on Harry.

Harry narrowed his eyes, sizing her up, calculating his next words. This time Ruth did not look away, her own mind running through scenarios, questions, looking for what to say until she finally alighted on a realisation. She had been swinging back and forth, away from Harry, towards Harry, past him to the other side and what kept the pendulum in motion, besides her overarching guilt at the death of George was the fact that she was never quite sure if Harry was manipulating her. She wanted to ask him if he had followed her that day she had met Malcolm, but was afraid of the answer. She was not afraid, however, to ask her other gnawing question.

"Who was Connie?"

Harry took a drink and tilted his head towards her. "Your replacement."

She looked down, a slight smile on her lips. "Here I thought I was irreplaceable."

"You are," he stated simply, without conceit or guile, causing Ruth's heart to drop into her stomach. She took a steadying breath to bring it back up to its rightful place. This was what he did so well, constantly shifting the ground from beneath her.

"And Sugarhorse?" she asked, trying to regain control of her thoughts.

"The walls have ears, Ruth," he countered, saying her name again, possessing it. He motioned to her now empty glass. "Can I get you another?" Before she had time to reply he had risen and strode off to the bar, leaving Ruth to contemplate the crumbs of their conversation.

She hadn't really thought this through, had she, this whole "drinks" business. It had been naive of her to think their conversation would not have strayed towards personal territory.

But she was not naive.

She knew that asking him out for a drink would stir the embers of a flame best left dormant. Just as he had done when they had sat on that bench under the pretext of talking about Jo.

In the intangible ether that was the universe, three words still hung between them - words that were never said. Her curiosity, her ego, wondered if he still held onto those words - if he would dare cross the line and say them. A line that she had moved after her conversation with Tariq, when she had stood in Harry's office and brushed her fingers across his hand. It had been a gesture of support, to show that she understood the difficult decisions he had to make - or so she had told herself. In moments of reflection, she knew that she had touched him so she could feel that familiar thrill, a taste of the connection they once had, that element that had been missing from their interactions.

She sighed at the riddle of her own mind. She was playing at something she had no right to. It would be folly to let things go further. Her feelings for Harry were like the stairs in an Escher painting, winding into each other and going nowhere.

Harry returned, carrying a half-pint for him and a full glass for her.

Ruth raised her brows. "Are you trying to get me drunk, Harry?"

Ignoring her question, he placed the drinks on the table and slid into the booth, taking the seat beside her. Ruth blinked in surprise, overwhelmed by the unexpectedness of the move. Her breath became shallow, as his presence consumed the oxygen from around her. He turned towards her, his thigh brushing against hers as he placed one arm on the table, the other on the seat behind her. She didn't dare turn to face him, her heart erratically beating as she swung between feeling trapped and deliciously heady.

Harry leaned in, his mouth close to her ear, his voice a low whisper. "Connie was a traitor. Sugarhorse was the code name for agents embedded in the Soviet ranks. Tiresias was their counter move - agents in our Service. Connie was part of it. She had been my friend for many years and I trusted her. She wore her mask exceedingly well."

Ruth turned her head, her eyes resting on his lapel as she contemplated what to say. She had not expected this information. She had dug into Connie and Sugarhorse only to come up against redaction and Eyes Only.

"Just so you know," Harry continued, "You managed to get information out of me that not even Blake and sodium pentothal could extract.

She took a large mouthful of her wine. His scent was enveloping her, pushing away everything else, the masculinity of it reminding her of George. She took another sip of wine. No, she mentally crossed that out; this was all Harry.

"Any other secrets you wish to pry from me?"

It was a leading question. She was well aware the he wanted her to take the conversation to something more personal. She cast about in her analyst mind for questions, a means to keep him at a distance.

" Yalta?"

"Ah, that was Juliet, the treacherous-" Harry stopped himself before completing the epithet.

"Wasn't she in a wheelchair?"

"Apparently, she picked up her mat and walked. They held Ros and myself prisoner in a house. Juliet injected Ros with a nerve agent while I watched.

"The fake death."

"Of which I was unaware. We didn't know that Adam had switched the serum. They executed her in front of me, she called to me for help and there was nothing I could do; a horror I'd rather not go through again."

There was a catch in his voice, exposing the naked vulnerability of the confession, causing even more of Ruth's defenses to give way. Was it age that had made him more open or was it her?

"Do you want to know about Adam?" Harry asked.

"Lucas told me," she said quietly, a sense of unease beginning to grow as she felt Harry taking command of the conversation, pushing it in a direction she wasn't ready to take.

"What about Zaf?"

"You don't need to-"

"He was captured by a group of mercenaries called the Redbacks. They tortured him for information and then sold him on. We found his remains or at least what we think were his remains in Pakistan."

She let out a small whimper, distraught that the vibrant young man that was Zaf had been condemned to such a horrible ending.

"Do you want to about Jo?"

"No, I-"

"What they did to her?"

"Harry, please," her voice was soft and ragged, " Why are you doing this?" Tears welled in her eyes, the damn threatening to break and spill over. Her hand rose in protest to stop his words, coming down to rest against the lapel of his jacket. She held it there not knowing whether to push him away or draw him in.

"The man you met today was assassinated. It could have been you."

She inhaled a shaky breath at the memory, her fingers moving fretfully over his lapel. Harry's hand rose to capture hers, pressing it to his chest. He moved in closer, surrounding her, the rest of the pub fading away into darkness, leaving the two of them in a world of their own.

"I have lost too many people, Ruth." There was a raw urgency to his voice. " If Fate, or whatever Gods there are, deign to bring them back into my life, I'm going to hold onto them no matter what. I will protect them at all costs. I want to be able to look up from my desk and see you sitting across the Grid and know that you're safe. If you can't give me anything else, at least give me that."

"Oh, Harry," she could only let his name out on a sigh not trusting herself to say more, afraid that the feelings she had kept locked away for so long would suddenly come rushing out and sweep her away.

They were so close, her temple brushing against his cheek, the arm that had rested behind her now drawing her in, his thumb stroking the base of her neck. She could feel the beating of his heart beneath her hand. She could curl her fingers around it and crush it, just as she knew he could to the same to hers. Through all the games and manipulation, she was the only one he trusted. After everything she had been through, she only trusted him. She closed her eyes, leaning into the moment, savouring it even though she didn't deserve it.

She tilted her head back to look up at him. His eyes were dark and hooded, darting down to her lips then back to her eyes, looking at her with the same intensity she had known those many years before. She sensed he was trying to control his breathing. She was losing control of the situation. She had stepped into a stream and now found herself pulled along with the current, the shore of her previous life receding into the distance. He was the only one who could protect her. She curled her fingers around his lapel and pulled him closer, her lips hovering at his ear.

"Take me home," she whispered.

Harry nodded.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

The door clicked softly closed, as they stood silhouetted by the blue half-light of her hallway. She wasn't entirely sure how they had come to be there for she was certain no words had passed between them. A cab hurtling through the darkness, their faces illuminated by the passing lights, his gloveless hand on top of hers, thighs brushing, she turning into him, his soft breath on her cheek, a look of invitation on her face. A door, a key, a lock; she had let him in.

They faced one another, neither of them daring to move for fear of breaking the tenuous thread that they had miraculously woven between them. They were both aware that having crossed the threshold into her space, they had taken a monumental step, a sense of returning to a point in time that they had reached years before when they had been so close to realising what they had then both desperately wanted. It was with this knowledge, this awareness of the acute fragility of their state that they stood, unable to move further, still wrapped in their coats, he in black and she in grey, toes on the edge of a precipice.

She knew that he was looking down at her, holding her with his eyes, drawing her to him. A wave, caught in his gravitational pull, swelling towards him with each breath. She turned her head to indicate the flat. "It's not very..." her voice trailed off. Warm? Homey? "I haven't had time to ..." Again the words dissolved into the air.

He didn't follow her gaze but kept his eyes locked on her, afraid that if he looked away she would disappear. "I don't care," he murmured.

They whispered so the shadows would not hear. She had moved from the safe house to a flat that was bigger and brighter, but the ghosts had followed her, as she knew they would. During the day, she could move about, shaking off memory, lost in a world of intrigue. The night was a different story. The bottle of pills had run out and she had refused the offer of more. She would lie half-awake, pulling the covers over her head, trying to shut them out. Tonight, she had said their names, honoured them, hoping they would give her a reprieve. With Harry here they had receded even further into the darkness, his presence pushing them away. He was not a ghost, but corporeal, immediate.

For years, she had kept this man at arm's length and now he stood, waiting for her just as she had waited for him.

"You never sent..." she faltered, not knowing how to complete the thought or whether she had any right to voice it.

"What?" he asked, bending his head closer to hers.

"You never came ..."

"I thought you were safe. Away from me."

"And now?"

She saw his chest rise, drawing in the air around her, letting out a long sigh that warmed her temple. She kept her face down, unable to look at him, unable to face what was surely preordained. She could feel the heat radiating from him, the solidness of him felt overwhelming and comforting at the same time. Her heartbeat quickened. She marveled that his nearness could still thrill her after all these years. So many years.

"Why?" she asked.

"Why what?" he asked her in return, his voice so very soft and low, his head leaning in closer to hear her words.

She could sense the tension in his arms, his fingers flexing at his side as if trying to keep hold of a slender thread. She thought that by delaying, she could keep a mote of control over the situation, over Harry, herself. If she let go she might well lose the little bit of herself she had cobbled together, held in fragile repair.

"Why would you still want me...after all this time?"

"How can you not know?" he hoarsely answered her question with a question. He could not put into words the thoughts that had haunted his sleepless nights.

She finally looked up at him, searching, as if by saying nothing she could draw out the raw nerve of his being. His eyes met hers with the same darkness, the same vulnerability, although she had carried hers around longer. She was not like him, schooled in the art of masks. In his eyes, she saw the look he had shown her, those many years ago when they had sat across from each other, during dinner. Their one date, which for her had taken on a staggering significance, having been the only time when they were completely alone, where he had looked at her with an openness that had left her equally thrilled and scared. A look, which she felt then, as she did now, entirely undeserving to receive.

"Because I'm broken," she whispered.

"You're beautiful," his voice quietly washed over her.

Her breath came out in a half laugh, half sob and before she could gather her senses, his head dipped down and his mouth found hers. Her heart stopped. There was nothing else, only his lips, pressing softly against hers, slowly moving over her mouth, warm, tempting her to more. She stood completely still, utterly lost, all conscious thought melting away. There was a faint rustle of fabric as his hands found their way under her coat, resting on her hips, his fingers tightly clasping the folds of her skirt; the thread of self-control. Her hands rose, hesitating, suspended in the air, finally coming to rest on his arms. She could feel the rough wool of his coat under her fingers and through it the solidness that was him. A part of her mind became detached, floating away on the wonder of the moment. She took a stumbling step into him - a move that served to break the thread of his resolve. His hands left the sureness of her skirt and moved to the small of her back, his fingers pressing into her spine, bending her, pulling her in.

The kiss became more insistent as he ran his tongue along her lips, coaxing them open, delving deep within her mouth, the force taking her breath away. She felt his chest expanding against her breasts as if he were breathing her in, filling himself with her essence, taking what little of her that she had found. He could not take all of her; she would demand something in return. Her arms came to life and she met the intensity of his kiss with her own fervour, pulling him into her, filling the dark spaces inside she could not face. Their hot breaths mingled, stirring them on, hungry mouths devouring each other. Their centres became unstable and they tipped off balance, thudding against the wall, he turning her against it for support. The words 'we should stop," became an incoherent jumble in her brain, lost on the journey to her mouth, escaping in a moan. How wonderful to be touched, to be held, to taste each other, starved pilgrims that they were.

His tongue trailed along her jaw, dipping into her ear, the rasp of his breath blocking everything out. She moaned as his lips moved to her throat, sucking the tender flesh, her neck extending in a delicate arch, her hands finding his shoulders for balance. He drew his hand across her ribs and cupped the weight her breast, his thumb rubbing her nipple through the layers of fabric. She inhaled sharply. This... this ...oh, this was all moving far too fast.

"Harry." She had meant it as a reproach, a caution; it came out as a sigh.

His lips moved against her ear. "Can we?" he whispered.

Oh, this man who never did anything in half measures, where she was a woman of quarters and eighths.

His fingers looked for access to her skin, tracing down the opening of her blouse, dipping into the valley between her breasts. He paused, his fingers lingering, on the rounded swell. "So soft," he murmured in wonderment. He found a button and moved it between his thumb and finger. One. Two. He drew the material away, revealing her skin still dusky from the Cypress sun, hooking the rough pad of his thumb under the lace of her bra, exposing where her flesh remained winter pale.

Her hand came up to still his. "I...we..." her voice faltered, her lungs unable to draw in air.

His gaze remained on her breast, his body stilled, as if breathing was a labour to great for him. He released her name on a sigh. "Oh, Ruth." This time, he did not own it. This time he intoned it with a quiet reverence, giving himself up to her.

Her knees buckled under the weight of the sentiment and she leaned against the wall for support. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. All the lines she had drawn and redrawn quickly disappearing, her resolve fading with them. His hand remained on her breast, enflaming her skin, her nipples growing taut. A warm flush suffused her body as she thought of him, covering her, surrounding her, moving inside her. "God forgive me," she murmured.

She opened her eyes to find his gaze burning into her, a knowing look on his face, a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth. She clutched the collar of his coat and brought his mouth down to hers, kissing him hard. He braced his arm against the wall, using his other hand to rake through her hair. They fumbled, teeth gnashing, noses bumping. She didn't care. She wanted him to take away the regret and the guilt, to lose the pain if only for a moment. She silenced the voice in her head telling her this would all lead to a massive emotional hangover.

Her hands moved along his sides, searching under the great weight of his overcoat, under the rough fabric of his suit jacket, feeling the silk of the lining, moving further to the cotton of his shirt. She needed to feel his skin and with great daring, she slipped her hand under his shirt only to feel the fabric of his vest. She let out a moan of frustration. So many layers, where did the real man begin.

He gripped her waist and stepped backwards, pulling her along with him, her head reeling from the force. As they moved, his hands came up, slipping her coat from her off shoulders, sliding it down over her arms until it fell to the floor with a sigh. She grabbed the lapels of his coat, pulling it back from his chest and over his shoulders, working it down his arms, pushing him back. She struggled to remove the garment and it finally fell to the floor with a resounding thump.

One layer removed, their feet tangled amongst the coats, they returned to discovering each other. His hands mapped the outline of her body, roaming over the curve of her hip, under her skirt, up her backside, massaging, kneading. Her palms lay flat against the expanse of his chest, her fingers flexed, feeling the muscle underneath his shirt. Her hands moved to find the smooth knot of his tie, a small hum of triumph escaping, as her fingers unravelled the silk. She released one button then the next; bringing her mouth up to the exposed hollow of his throat, her tongue flicking out, licking, sucking, a primeval groan arising from his depths.

He pulled back, looking at her, heavy-lidded and swaying. A smile tinged the corners of her mouth at the knowledge that she could do this to him. His eyes narrowed and he let out a gravelly rumble. He kissed the smile away, bringing her in close, finding points of contact they had only ever imagined. His fingers followed her hip bone, down to the crook of her inner thigh, feeling her heat through the layer of her skirt, his fingers pressing against her, moving in slow circles. She gasped into his mouth, feeling the corners of his lips rise in a sly smile. Another breach through the walls of intimacy, her defenses crumbling, soon there would be nothing left.

Instinct took over as she moved her leg between his, his thigh coming between hers. She curved against his body in soft undulation - breasts, stomach, hips. His fingers dug into her flesh as he pulled her pelvis against his. A quickening flashed deep in her belly as she felt his hardness grinding into her, she pushing back in sinuous abandon. His breath became harsh, hers, a soft whimper. Her heartbeat doubled, pounding in her ears. This was the Rubicon, she thought, how would they ever come back from this.

He moaned, tightening his arms around her, she wrapping hers around his neck, her toes rising from the ground. He stepped over the coats, carrying her in the embrace. She murmured against his lips, "mind your back", to which he replied, "Bedroom." Her response was an incoherent mumble. She had passed the point of decorum, not caring where he had her.

They didn't hear the sound, even though they were acutely attuned to the tone no matter where they were. They continued to kiss, as if there was no chime, convinced their passion could keep the world away. The sound stopped and they sighed into each other, only to become tense when it started up again. He released his hold around her and her feet gently touched the floor. Through the layers of their lust, words rose to their consciousness. Nuclear deterrent, deadline, Nightingale. Their mouths remained against each other slightly parted, panting, continuing to breathe one another. The stood holding each other, their chests heaving, trying to find their equilibrium as they came down off the plateau where they had taken one another.

He moved to her ear, nipping her lobe between his teeth. "It's not important."

Her lips moved against his cheek. "Isn't it always?"

"If it was important, they'll phone back."

The phone chimed and vibrated. Harry growled.

"Would it be the end of the world if I didn't answer?"

"Considering the current political climate, it very well may be."

Ruth pulled away and his hand came up to grab her upper arm. "Don't go," he implored. She moved, taking him with her and leaned over to rescue his coat from off the floor. She retrieved his mobile from the depths of a pocket, her eyes falling on the display. She handed the phone to Harry and he gave her a levelled look. He flicked the screen with his thumb and answered a terse, "Yes." He kept his free arm around her waist pulling her into him. She rested her head on his chest, feeling the vibration of his voice against her cheek as he spoke. She sighed at the unexpected bliss of the experience.

"I have to go," he whispered into her ear.

She nodded her head, understanding all too well the pressure of the life he led. "Do you need me to come with you?"

"No, get a few hours sleep if you can." His lips brushed the top of her head. "I don't want to go."

At this, she looked up to find his gaze resting softly on her. She raised her hands, placing them on either side of his face, rubbing her thumbs across the skin, rough and warm. "I know," she answered and she pulled his head down to hers. She kissed him as she had that day on the wharf. This time it was not a kiss of goodbye but a kiss of coming home.

They untangled their arms from around each other, Harry tucking in his shirt. He paused and gazed at Ruth, his lips parting slightly, a gleam in his eye. Ruth looked down and realised her blouse was still undone. She hastily pulled the fabric together, holding it over her breast, looking away, demurely. How would they ever look each other in the eye when they were on the Grid?

"You should..." she trailed off.

"Yes." He cleared his throat and adjusted his tie, smoothing, aligning, creating order. He shrugged on the great weight of his coat and stood with his arms hanging at his sides, looking down at the floor.

Ruth moved closer, trailing her fingers over the material on his forearm. "It's alright," she assured him.

He looked up abruptly as if waking from a dream and took the few paces to the door. He placed his hand on the doorknob and spoke without turning to her. "Will you lock the door after I'm gone?" His voice held a tone she could not decipher. She didn't answer but stood in the dim light. He quickly opened the door, vanishing, as if he was never there.

She walked over to the door and leaned into it, resting her head against the cool wood, a poor replacement for Harry's warm chest. She moved her hand to the door chain, listening to the metal slide across the track as she settled the notch in place. She had opened the door, let him in and now she locked it. The realisation hit her. He was asking if she would lock the door between them, just as she had done years ago.

She turned around and leaned back against the door, her head was thick, the wine wearing off. She used to be able to drink twice as much with George. "George," she whispered, the memory of him flooding back into her conscious. She saw the outline of her coat, a crumpled heap on the floor, feeling the weight of what had just happened sink in. She slid down the door like a rag doll, every support she had built since her return crumbling at the thought of what she had done. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she whispered to him.

The shadows moved around her, those who had died too young while she remained, calling her, never letting her go. She had let it all happen too quickly, she hadn't healed, she hadn't mourned, and she was not whole enough to be doing this. It could never be just her and Harry in a relationship, there would always be George rising between them. And Lord knew how many ghosts trailed after Harry. She ran her fingers through her hair, pulling at the ends.

"Oh Jo, what have I done?"


	11. Chapter 11

_One last little scene at the end of Season 8. Thank you so much for reading and especially for your kind reviews._

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Chapter 11

They sat, heads bowed together, talking in low whispers, the light of the monitor bathing their faces in an eerie blue glow. Ruth stopped chewing the end of her pen long enough to point to a line on the screen. Tariq, silently understanding, nodded and followed the link. Over the past hours, they had developed a form of non-verbal shorthand, a synergy of minds; a bond forged from the chaos of the day's events.

They had, for the most part, kept the Grid together. At first flying blind on adrenaline as they tried to establish ground communication, then moving into autopilot, as they feared they had lost all three members of the team. As grains of intelligence slowly trickled through, they were able to rouse themselves from their stupor and piece together patches of information. The bomb had taken Ros, the Home Secretary and in a surprising turn of events, Russell Price, head of the CIA's Operations in Europe. The command of the Grid had fallen to Ruth and she had found herself delegating, cajoling, arguing, fielding questions from the bureaucratic nightmare that had ensued. At any other point in time, she would have taken a certain pride in her ability to marshal people but now she took it in stride as if it were an everyday occurrence.

She found her detachment from the situation slightly worrisome, thinking she should be more upset at Ros' death. For unlike Jo's death where she had been numb with grief, this time she had partitioned off the pain, severing her emotions from her intellect. She was aware that compartmentalisation might not be the healthiest thing to do, but they were still in the middle of an operation; there would be time to grieve later. Harry had taught her well.

Hours had passed and an intense hush had fallen over the Grid. She should have gone home herself, she hadn't slept the night before and was bone weary, but she couldn't leave without seeing Harry; confirming for herself that he was unharmed. Even though she was tired, her mind whirred on, spinning on the fact that Price had been involved in Nightingale. She had pulled Tariq into the tech suite with her, the banks of monitors affording a semblance of privacy, telling him of her suspicions. If there were Nightingale operatives in the CIA there may very well be elements in their own Service. They now culled through past information with a different eye, following leads they may have discounted.

They were absorbed in the transactions of a bank account when a dark figure loomed at the entrance of the tech suite. Harry had returned. They waited for him to speak, but he remained quiet, letting the silence stretch out. He abruptly turned and walked away, moving towards his office. Ruth knew that he had come in search of her, a wordless command that she must go to him. She laid her hand on Tariq's arm and gave him a last squeeze of comfort before she pushed herself out of the chair and followed in Harry's wake.

She stood framed in the doorway to his office, the glow from the hall casting her long shadow into the room. Bars of light filtered through the metal slats of the blinds. A prison of his own design, she thought, where he was destined to return after each loss. Her eyes cast about the room attempting to adjust to the dimness. Harry was not at his desk; instead, he sat on the lounge, backed against the window, a silhouette in harsh relief. He turned his head toward her, but she could not see his eyes. She wondered if they held the same look he had given her the day Jo had died.

She hovered between the light of the corridor and the darkness of his office, uncertain which way to move. She could step away, back into the light of Grid, where everything was professional and safe. Any worry she may have had over their ability to look each other in the eye after the previous evening had evaporated with the crisis of the day. He had donned the mask of Section Head and she had slipped back into the skin of an Analyst as if nothing had ever happened. They had always been supremely adept at manoeuvring around their feelings.

Her hand rose to her throat, fingering the silver charm on her necklace. She had promised herself she would take it out when she felt whole but had found herself opening the box this morning. She remembered Jo's words about women needing to be stronger because so much more was asked of them. It was and an eternity ago that she had stood alone in that corridor weeping for Jo. She didn't want to be alone. She didn't want Harry to be alone. The darkness of the room beckoned to her.

She took a deep breath and stepped into the office, sliding the door closed behind her. She leaned back against the wood, assessing the situation, contemplating what to do. There was only one option. She pushed herself away from the door towards the array of decanters housed on a small credenza. She could feel Harry's eyes watching her. She wrapped her hand around a tumbler and poured him two fingers of scotch, then added a third. Before turning to him, she took a gulp and gasped as the liquid burned down her throat. How did he drink this poison? She turned, and took a step towards the desk, her hand reaching for the lamp.

"Don't," he commanded hoarsely.

The catch in his voice caught her off guard. Had he been crying? Did Harry cry? Of course he did, he was a man of thoughts and feelings. He had lost someone close to him. She looked down at the tumbler and rubbed her thumb over the spot where she had taken the drink. Had he cried when she left? Alone with his grief? If she were a different woman in a different world, he would be in her arms by now. She would be scolding him for risking his life, hugging him for returning safely, and warning him never to do that again. But she was not that woman and that was not their world.

She moved to stand before him offering up the scotch. His right hand rose to take it, his fingers covering hers and before she could move away, he deftly captured her free hand with his left. She froze in a moment of panic. They were on the Grid, for all to see, everyone would know. She looked out the window. What few souls were left were too busy and tired to care about her and Harry. He could sense her hesitancy and his grip grew tighter as he gently tugged her closer, his knees brushing up against her skirt. It felt odd to be standing over him as if the poles had reversed, north was south, the world off its axis, unbalanced. She looked down mesmerised by the whorl of hair on the crown of his head. She wanted to run her finger along the curve of his hairline and cradle his head against her stomach; tell him it would be all right, that she would look after everything. She felt an overwhelming urge to protect him, to hurt whoever had caused him pain. Instead, she relinquished the tumbler up to him and moved to sit down beside him. He did not release her hand but brought it to rest on his knee. She could feel the bone beneath the fabric of his trousers, another reminder of the man beneath the suit.

Harry took a slow drink of his scotch, and then looked down into the glass; his thumb rubbing along the rim where the faint tell-tale traces of her lipstick remained.

"The Home Secretary, Ruth. The bloody Home Secretary." He spoke through gritted teeth.

"We saved the Pakistani President."

"Was it worth it? To give up one of our own?"

"We averted a nuclear war."

"It was a pyrrhic victory."

"Another such victory would utterly undo us," she echoed, paraphrasing the quote.

"There are no laurels here. Our work is in the shadows. Never recognised when we do our job well. Only acknowledged when we fail."

His hand remained on hers, his thumb rubbing back and forth over her knuckles.

"How is Lucas?" Ruth asked.

"Recovering."

She didn't know how to speak of Ros, what she could possibly say at this time. She reverted to the practical.

"I'll look after the arrangements. The service."

"Ask Malcolm if he has a poem. I'm sure he does."

She looked at him askance. He knew about her meeting with Malcolm.

"He had a poem for me," Harry continued, "but he wouldn't tell me what it was. I hope it's not Captain, My Captain. Tell them not to read that at my funeral."

She smiled at him softly. "That day is sure to be a long way off. I may forget."

His face remained turned away from her. She studied his profile, the way his jaw muscle flexed involuntarily, how the starched edge of his shirt collar cut into the flesh of his neck. She had sat in countless briefings, committing all these details to memory, but now she realised she could never really know all of him.

Their conversation had taken a turn and she followed it, her curiosity getting the better of her. "Was there a poem for me?" she whispered.

"There was no service. We needed to maintain the pretext of your deceit."

She stiffened as if he had dealt her a blow and then chastised herself for feeling hurt that there was no memorial when she had not even been dead.

Harry sensed her reaction and looked down at her hand in his. "Don't think I didn't mourn for you. Because I did." He took in a deep breath and released it quietly. "I do."

Ruth swallowed. The ability of this man to torment her with glimpses into his fractured heart was sure to be her undoing. He took one last swig of his scotch and placed it on the table, the clattering of glass against glass, bringing them back to the present.

"They took Ros from me once, now I've lost her again. No man should have to lose someone twice over." His hand tightened around Ruth's, the force pressing her fingers together. "I want you to find out how this happened. Who is responsible."

"Sarah Caufield, Russell Price - they're both dead."

"You of all people should know that we're dealing with a hydra. Lop off one head and eight remain. Someone has to pay."

"Harry," she spoke, her voice remaining level, feeling the tension in his fingers, "Revenge isn't in our remit."

"It is in mine."

Ruth stared at him, her eyes wide - a connection from a previous conversation slowly dawning upon her.

"Kachimov," she whispered, "Ros mentioned a man named Kachimov."

"He withheld information that could have saved Adam."

"And?" she asked, not entirely sure she wanted to know the answer.

For the first time, Harry looked directly at her. His eyes were hard, his mouth set in a grim line. Ruth nodded, drawing back from him, a shiver running through her. It was only last night that he had looked at her with such tenderness and now his face was a mask of stone. She was in equal measure repulsed and attracted, fascinated by the darker working of this man mind. A man whose hands had held and caressed her, could, on any given moment turn and kill someone. She asked herself again, how she could love a man like this.

For she did love him she knew that, but it was a love fettered by darkness and death. It could never withstand the light of day; it could only exist in this one place. That is what she needed to tell him. She had spent the hours before dawn formulating what she would say to him. She had envisioned a very adult conversation. She had not envisioned their world reduced to rubble. She could not tell him now. She could not be that cruel.

He looked at her, his eyes narrowed, reading her. "Don't leave me, Ruth."

"I'm right here with you, Harry."

"You know what I mean." His voice became hoarse once more.

She looked down, unable to meet his gaze. He knew her.

He turned towards her, his presence pulling her in, her upper body unconsciously mirroring his. She could smell the scotch on his breath, the faint musk of him. The smell of smoke clung to him, residue from the blast. He leaned into her, the motion causing her hand to move further up his thigh. She could feel the crease of his trousers beneath her palm. He raised his other hand, stopping in mid air. She thought he was going to move it to her breast, she silently willed him to follow through on the motion, wanting him to place it where the imprint of his hand still remained from the evening before. He let it fall to her knee, using it as a brace to balance himself as he leaned into her ear.

"Let me take you home."

She inhaled sharply, shocked that the question would come on the heels of such loss and destruction. Shocked that she been swept along in the moment with him, ready to give herself over to it. It was adrenaline, she thought, the aftermath of being so close to death, wanting to reach out a feel alive. She had felt it too. She was more of this man's world than she would ever be of George's. Inextricably entwined, never fully breaking free.

It would be so easy to fall into him, in the darkness of the office, the tangle of their feelings. She was damaged, he was damaged. She knew that anything they did in that moment would be built on pain, a foundation certain to crumble. She spoke half way through her thought, "Harry, it would be ..."

"I know." He let out a harsh sigh whether, from frustration or anger, Ruth wasn't certain.

"You haven't slept," she said, "You should rest; it's been three days in one."

"You're right."

She didn't want to be right. He moved his hand away and sat back in his seat. She didn't want to let him go, not yet.

She had lain awake during her usual three in the morning vigil, tossing in bed, remembering the feel of his lips and his hands, craving more, imagining him beside her, only to turn over and see the face of George. She had pummelled her pillow in anger over the unfairness of the situation. That she should be the one to live instead of George, his only crime being that he had known her, that her transgressions had been far greater. In the divine justice of the universe, she had no right to be happy. She would allow herself this moment with Harry, door shut, cocooned from the world, the air warmed by their quiet breaths. She could not give him what he desired, but she could do the one thing he had asked - to be on the Grid where he could see that she was safe - and in doing so she would know that he was safe.

She folded her hands into his, her thumb rubbing against the vein of his wrist, wondering if she was feeling the beat of his pulse or hers.

"Harry, you don't have to take me home."

The softness of her voice drew him back and he turned to her, his body pulled towards hers, always. He raised his eyes to hers gentle, searching. How she had missed that look. Her throat constricted at the thought that underneath the subterfuge and manipulation that tender man still existed. She looked into his eyes, a smile passing across her lips. For the first time since her return, she felt a sense of peace. She leaned into him, her forehead brushing against his cheek and she sighed.

"I am home."


End file.
